TOPIC: 2015 How Much Seed Have You Planted This Year/Season

Hello all. I thought it might be good to start a thread for all the growers that are active on here and maybe it will get some lurkers (and members) to become more active. It does seem as if this year has minimal activity on here compared to all the previous years.

So, how many pounds or ounces, or just how many individual seeds (or berries) have you planted this year?

What planting methods did you use?

What area or state did your seeds originate and what state are you planting them in?

What month did you get them in/on the ground?

Then, of course, please update on success rate next spring ,hopefully with pictures.

Let's do what we can to help each other by sharing knowledge, for the plant and each other's success.

Ok. I will go first. I planted a mere 2 oz. of stratified seeds this morning (11/28/15) in the rain. That is all for the season for me. The seeds I purchased on a popular auction site and was shipped from only 10 miles away. They originated from New York and were supposed to be \"wild\". I planted them in Southeast Ohio.

All were planted with TNHunter's modified rake and scatter method. I had great results thus far doing it this way. This is raking the leaves to one side and raking the composted leaf litter (and fluffing the top inch of soil) to the other side and putting back the cover in reverse order.

Through the late growing season, I planted about two to three cups of berries at various locations in my woods as well.

Pictures coming in five months. Sorry but 17 months until the berry seeds sprout and I get pictures. Here is a picture of the seeds. There sure were a lot of them smiling.

This is my second year growing seng, Last year and this year I purchased the 2 oz. Seed & 8 oz. Rootlets off of wildgrown. Surprisingly a few of the rootlets from last year produced berries which I promptly planted.

Last year I planted six different test plots by raking the leaves to one side scattering seeds/planting rootlets, then raking the litter back over. This year I took all the rootlets and made a seed bed similar to tnhunters, the seeds, my daughters and I planted in the test plots that did well from last year and around the maples in my sugar bush. I had set a handful of the seeds aside for my boss from my summer job doing forestry.

NY was the planting area.

Planted both years in late October

The success rate from last year wasn't all that great, Many of the rootlets pronged out but many of those were trampled/died/or were eaten by deer. Out of my six test plots with seed four had sprouts, three out of the five with rootlets had prongs come up. Two of my plots were under sugar maples/beech but were close enough to some old oak trees that they were tore up by bears, deer, birds, and rodents, also the beech and oak leaves were awfully thick in those areas.
Oddly the one plot that did the best was just off my goat field, literally five feet inside the treeline i had the most seed come up and all the rootlets as well, It was a product of laziness on my part

Also I've put up fencing around many of them and placed some dummy tree tubes inside in an attempt to curb curiosity.

I planted 100 stratified seeds at my cabin in the mountains of Virginia the weekend before thanksgiving...I raked back the cover to bare soil, indented 1/2 to 1/4 of an inch, set each seed in and lightly covered them with soil and then the forest cover. I planted these on the north east slope real close to a bunch of black cohosh. I believe these seeds came out of Illinois.

Hello all! I have planted 5 lbs this fall and bought the seed from different suppliers. I bought some from Wildgrown, Emerald Castle Farms, and Harding's. I also planted 3 1/2 lbs in 2014 and 1 lb in 2013. This is the first year I have planted ECF seeds. I have had better than 85% germination from '13-'14. Most of my planting is wild simulated. The wild simulated beds, I raked the leaf litter aside and used the corner of a hoe to cut my rows. Then I covered back the leaf litter and added pelletized gypsum. In 2 beds, I tilled and amended the soil to raise my own seed producers. These were all (250) 3-5 year old wild roots that I transplanted from another piece of family property. All planted in Indiana.

Take my advice. Even in the North you must begin picking berries the first day of September. I waited too long and lost over 2,000 berries to mice. I only got 710 seeds and berries planted.

Despite my lackluster results, I learned a lot. In particular I learned how to identify the type of dirt that ginseng thrives in. Also I discovered many companion plants.

I only plant native seeds. I spent many hours crawling under branches and deadfalls to plant seeds in sheltered locations. Ha !

Maybe I will post a picture.

Here is a fairly impressive plant. I think it had 21 berries.

Hi everyone, I'm pretty new to this site but since I'm really enjoying all the sharing of ideas on here that might help me I guess It's time I start sharing as well. I got 2 Oz. of seed from Wildgrown in Dec. 2014 and held them in the fridge until the end of Feb. before I got them planted and had a pretty poor rate of plants come up, probably on my part for not getting them planted quicker. I'm hoping that some of the rest of them will finally come up this year after a good winter of sleep. The ones that did come up did really well in the 4 different test locations I put them in.
Since my test plants that did come up did really well, this last fall on Halloween day 2015 I planted 10 Lbs. of 3 Yr old roots and about 1/3 Lb. of seeds from Wildgrown on some property I bought just for growing Ginseng in Western Washington State. Yes I did say Washington State, and I'm quite aware that far more people believe it can't be done here than there are those who think it will work. I planted 2/3 of the root on a Northern facing slope and the other 1/3 on a Southern facing slope, and my 1/3 Lb. of seed on the Northern facing slope as well. Then since I didn't learn my lesson last year about getting seeds in the ground as soon as I can after I get them, I planted the other 2/3 Lb. of seed that I kept in the fridge since last Halloween just last weekend on my Southern facing slope. So I'm pretty anxious to see what things look like in my different areas about mid April or so.
I believe I have an advantage that I don't think I'll have to deal with that unfortunately you all must plan around aggressively, and that is the \"people & poachers\" factor. My growing area is WAY off the beaten path in a pretty remote area & quite honestly I don't even know of anyone around here that would have a clue what Ginseng plants looked like if they walked right through em since they are not native to here. Since I will probably have many agricultural challenges ahead with my wild-sim program because of my geographic location, I'm hoping that my lack of \"People\" issues will help lead me to success.
So If things go good this summer for my project then I plan to plant 50 Lbs. of 3 yr. old root & another 10 Lbs. of seed this fall between my property and one other piece in a different area that I hope to secure an agreement with an interested landowner very soon. And I do have an ECF seeder on the way and I'm excited to try it out this fall. All my seed planting to this point has been scratch & cast then re-cover with the original mulch I raked off. I'll try to put a picture on here of what I've done. Thanks again for all the great sharing of ideas, I'll continue to update more when something happens...

Hey I finally figured out how to shrink my picture down enough to get it to post (better in the woods than in front of a computer) then forgot to say what it was. This is one of the areas I planted 3 Yr. old root in last October, about 1 root per Sq. Ft...