TOPIC: My first big planting of seng - Hankins Method used

TNhunter, looks like you had a full day yesterday. Congratulations on getting that project done. I know exactly what you're going through. I've already planted around 1000 seeds, and have cleared enough brush to plant another pound on a couple of plots this year. I'm just waiting for a little rain to make the conditions just right. It's a lot of work, but seeing all those little plants next spring will probably light a fire under us to do even more in 2011! Great work once again.

Just a FYI on this location.

I did have a soil test done and the results came back:

5.8 = PH
11 = Phosphorous
120 = Potassium
1472 = Calcium
236 = Magnesium

In Scotts book he has a table that list the quality of ginseng stands found at different calcium levels.

1500 = Poor
3000 = Moderate
5000 = Good

Bone meal is a good organic slow release fertilizer that provides Phosphorous and calcium.

Gypsum of course adds calcium.

Hopefully with what I have added I will get up closer to that 5000 per acre range.

In the spring before the plants emerge I will put on more gypsum (around 10 lbs), and will see if I can get some rock phospate to top dress with for a slow release phosphorous fertilizer.

TNhunter

TNhunter

Great job with the pics.

Congrats on getting that big job done! Now sit back and Wait.

I didnt catch how much seed you planted? Are you sure about Scott's book saying 10% bleach? I could'nt find where he says the amount used. I have used 1 oz. bleach to 1 Ga. of water years ago and had good success with that. I now use a Natural Biological treatment Bacillus Subtilis GB03 Which was designed to treat seeds and plants. And that works well.

Oh,it's called the Hankins method.

Look forward to see them in the Spring!

classicfur

Classicfur,

Around page 140 he talks about picking berries, depulping and treating.

Page 142 - last paragraph - he talks about using 10% household bleach solution - 1 part chlorine bleach to 9 parts water and he suggest between 10-12 minutes in the solution then rinse good.

That was at the end of the de-pulping process.

On page 151 he also mentions \"seed treatments\" and mentions the bleach solution being used as well as a mix of (1 oz of formaldehyde per gallon of water) being used.

On that same page he does mention both of those mixes being used on seeds after they are brought up from stratification in late summer/early fall.

Then on page 164 - in the section on where to obtain planting stock - he mentions treating stratified seeds after purchasing them from a seed supplier. There he again mentions the 1 part bleach to 9 parts water solution and suggest no more than 12 minutes in the solution.

He also says in that section that if you order seeds by mail and do not know if the grower has treated the seeds - that it is wise to treat them yourself.

I had to read up on that early yesterday morning to make sure I understood it correctly - so hopefully I did get that part right. My seed supplier did list a phone number with my order, but when I called - got voice mail. Nothing in the doc I got with the seeds mentioned them being treated.

Thanks on the Hankins vs Hawkins.

I will have to look into that organic opiton you mentioned.

One thing I noticed about the seeds after treating with clorox solution - was that even after a good rinsing they still had a clorox smell to them. I actually rinsed 2-3 times but could still smell it. That may make the seeds less desireable to mice, moles or other critters that may find some of them.

Hops so.

TNhunter

On how much seed I planted, not exactly sure on that.

I know the bed was 100' long and I had 4 furrows running the full length, so 400' of furrow was dug. I tried to space the seed out 4\" which would be 3 seed per foot.

400 x 3 = 1200 seed.

But now I prepared 7 oz of seed when I did the float test and clorox treatment. I expect 7 oz of seed is probably around 3000 seeds.

When I did the float test in the chlorox solution the results were very good. I think only about 12 seeds floated and I just scooped those off and tossed them.

Given more time some of those may have sunk to the bottom.

Just looking at my seed bag after planting it looked like about 1/2 was left so I expect I planted somewhere around 1500 seed (just a guess). I know there were several places where I dropped 2 seed instead of 1 so I may have a little thinning to do later on.

TNhunter

TNhunter, I remember seeing somewhere that you found some stratified seed for $30/lb. Is this what you planted in your latest patch? I want to purchase some seed in the next few days, and I was wondering if that place had any available. It's getting late, and a lot of places are either out of stock or have limitied supplies.

looking good tn Im looking into planting next year and wondered where you got your seed from? just started looking into it and reading about last week even though i've known about people getting it around this area for years. for now im doing research and will scope out the areas i want to plant next year. yes i know it will take a long time to grow and that's fine, since im 53 if it doesn't work out for me perhaps it will be a legacy for my kids. but really my biggest question is how did you decide who to buy your seed from or did you just randomly pick a site and order it. did you order it early in the year or just recently?

TNhunter

It's alot of work planting seeds. I know my first years planting took about five days to plant 1 pound of seeds. Now it takes me about 9-14 hrs to plant 1 pound. It will become easier every year you plant.

As far as dropping two seeds together it is better to just leave them alone. Its fine to have 2 or 3 plants growing together as long as the have plenty of air movement around them. Now if you drop 15 seeds all close to each other then you need to thin them.

When I planting seeds I've gotten pretty good at dropping them just where they need to be. But occasionally I end up dropping a few in one spot. I just leave them alone. And have not seen aproblem with that.

Three young ones,1 yr olds:

Jacquo & Sweetd,

The last couple of years we have sold our seng to Glenn Bradey over in Pulaski TN and after last years sale we were talking seng a bit and he mentioned having stratified seed for sale for 28.00/lb. I did not buy any but later on wished that I had.

Back around Aug 15 I called him to see if he was going to have seed for sale this year and he said Yes - but the price would be a little higher 30.00/lb. I asked what the seed source was and he said a shade grown cultivated grower up in Wisconsin (which by the way is where most of the stratified seed and rootlets come from).

Well then a couple weeks ago I called him to check on the price of seng and to check on the seed again and he told me he would not have any seed for sale this year - he could not actually get any from his supplier because of the weather issue that caused the shortage up in Wisconsin.

I was planning on buying anywhere from 2-5 lbs from him when we sold our seng and he said he would put some back for me and keep it if we did not sell until late Nov or even December.

But anyway that did not work out because he just can't get the seed this year. The way folks are talking it may be scarce next year too.

My long term plan is to plant using seed that I produce myself (as much as I can anyway) and got started on that this year by making a seed producing bed. I have 44 real nice 3 and 4 prong roots planted in a cultivated bed which I am going to give special care and harvest berries from.

Here is a link to the forum post with details on that.

www.wildgrown.com/index.php/Ginseng-Foru...d-Producing-Bed.html

The seed that I am planting now I bought from hardwoodginseng.
I was just looking around online and comparing prices and decided to try some seed from them. At that time it was still very dry here and I did not want to buy a lot of seed so I just bought 3000 seed for 60.00.

He has 1000 seed for 20.00 (shipping included) and I ordered 3 of those, 3000 seeds for 60.00. The package arrived quickly and the seed looked and smelled good and did real well in the float test - only around 12 seeds out of 3000 floated. I weighed the bag of seed and it was 7.2 oz.

On the website he mentions that his seed is from Minnesota (not Wisconsin) but he does not mention whether it is from shade/cultivated, woods/cultivated or wild simulated plants. The seeds were noticably larger than the wild seng seed I see around here so I doubt it was from wild simulated plants.

In the info I got with the seeds he does mention having old wild-simulated roots for sale but that is not listed online where I bought the seed at hardwoodginsend dot com.

He has 1 lb of stratified seed for sale at 85.00/lb and shipping is included.

Hope this helps.

TNhunter

TNhunter, thanks for taking the time to reply. I'll have to hit the internet and order some seeds in the next day or two.