TOPIC: early ripen berries

Hi all,

A little story and introduction before my question. My family and I were fortunate enough to purchase our dream property of 10.5 acre in mountains of Western NC a year ago. I'd say 6 or so acres of it is wooded. The only thing I know about ginseng back then was my mom takes them regularly and they grow in the woods/mountains. When I found out how much she was paying for them I joked with her about me growing her some...just for fun. Sometime early April last year I bought about 200 seeds off Ebay and did a little research on where best to grow them. Ok, so a sloping and NE facing woods for shade is ideal. I think I have just that! Just before I grabbed my bag of seed and headed for what i thought was an ideal area I went ahead and youtube ginseng just to see what they look like and how to ID them. Headed behind my barn with a spade, bottle of water and my bag of seeds. Low and behold stumbled upon about 10-15 small patches of seng! There were 10 4 prongs, bunch of 3s, 2s and 3 leafers. I was super stoked to say the least. Unfortunately, it was only the NE facing side that I found any and a few on the opposite side down the holler. I bought some seeds here last year and planted a few pounds worth on about 3/4 acres of it.

So on to my question. The next few months I visited those patch almost everyday admiring the beauty of it. By the end of July I have a few plants with ripen berries and by mid August most were ripened. I picked maybe 200 or so of those berries and stratified them. I read that early ripers may germinate this year so I dug them up today and sure enough some had tail sticking out. So my question is, are these early ones to ripen/germinate are strain or environment related?

Lar..

See the youtube vid below... it speaks to the issue of early ripening berries and first year germination.

It is a good channel, they show all kinds of stuff you can produce from the woods.

TNhunter