TOPIC: First year plants?

Classicfur,
I know you have some really nice ginseng growing and its around 6 or 7 years old if I remember your post correctly. Are you getting any seed off of your plants yet? I know some seed suppliers claim ginseng plants will produce seed after 4 years. But in wild simulated I know at 4 years old, getting seed is almost impossible.
How much seed if any do you expect to get this year off your plants? I think you stated you have around 50,000 plants and if only half produce 20 seeds per plant that is 500,000 seeds. Which would be around 70 lbs of seed. If you get that much are you going to plant them or sell them. What a great opportunity either way. I hope you do not mind me asking. I just hope I have the same opportunity someday soon with my plants. You are about 3 or 4 years ahead of me on planting and I am just curious and interested in the possibilities.
Thanks,
Latt

Hey Latt,

I do have some 6 and 7 yr olds this year, but they are all growing in Wisconsin on land that I sold to a friend. Combined they total about 5,000 plants. The problem is that I probably won't make it there this year. I do know that these plants are producing nice berries.

I do have about 9,000 five yr olds here in Maine, that I'm guessing on getting 40-60 thousand seeds from them this year. Some will produce seeds and some will not develope completly. I will plan on stratifying and planting them in my woods.

I look forward to trying my hand at stratifying seeds.

My 3 and 4 yr olds, I will clip the flowers off them, so the energy will go into root mass instead of producing berries.

With ginseng, every new year is more exciting than the last year.

classicfur

Classicfur,
Thanks for the reply. Hopefully some of your Wisconsin plants will drop seeds that will survive and give you some additional ginseng plants.
Thanks,
Latt

Classicfur and other experts,
I also like to get more information. When you say 9k plants generating 50k seeds, that's 6 seeds per plant on average. I assume that's after attributions of fallen berries, eaten by birds, etc. Still how many berries do you expect a plant in its 6th season to produce before all these attritions? Thanks.