TOPIC: ginseng diseases

I was recently watching a couple video clips, and there was a ginseng farmer saying after they harvest the root that they cannot plant ginseng on the same ground they just harvested from because the ground is full of diseases that will kill the next round of seeds planted. Has anyone ever heard of this before and if so how common is it and what disease is it? I am not at all a smart person but I don't think this is true.

I have talked to 3 long time growers before I planted my shade crop and they all said yes you can relant....but the chance of any plants making it past 3 years are very slim. Maybe if you do a total fungicide soak plant a cover crop wait a year then till it in. They all said it takes about 9-10 years for the soil to recoup. I have not had experience in field cultivation until this year..only in the woods past 6 years

What is this disease?

ShadowWalker,

Replant failure is a well known phenomenon with ginseng -not just cultivated roots. I've experienced it with woodsgrown roots also. I never fertilize woodsgrown stuff, but even after having grown for only a year or two, and leaving a dug out bed (rootlets were sold for transplant) for over five years, I planted maybe 1/2 pound and had only 3 or 4 seedlings show up the next spring. What seems odd is that the beds I chose to test this were beds where I had little or no disease and excellent growth and healthy plants. I've tried it a number of times with the same results.

There are some studies which postulate theories, but nothing definitive. So, at this point, no one really knows why this happens.

Maybe all nutrients are taken away. I wonder if planting turnips afterwards would help since they seem to pull the nutrients from the lower soil and pull them back to the top of the soil. I will have to give that a try.