TOPIC: Beyfuss- Wild Simulated Roots

Hey Guys

Here is Bob Beyfuss' page, showing him with just over 3 lbs of fresh Wild-Simulated roots that he sold for $900.

If my calculations are right. 3 lbs of fresh roots would be just over 1 lb once they are dry. Which means he sold aprox 1 lb of dry roots for $900

The thing that amazed me is that 107 roots that are 9 yrs old would equal aprox 1 lb.

Any thoughts? What ever the case, thats a pretty good price.

sites.google.com/site/drbobsginseng/home

classicfur

I looked at his site and that picture of him at the table with his ginseng and what looks to me like a beer can for size reference...well beverage can..reminded me of some of my pictures and the things i have used for reference, so here is my 2005 ginseng seed 50lbs that i purchased and used a pack of cigs for reference. i hope to dig mine and take a picture of a truckload of sang. That ginseng was grown in some very rich soil.

K_DUCE,
I am glad you joined this forum. I am looking forward to seeing your truckload of sang pics someday. I have planted over 50 lbs of seed in the last 3 years. The most I have ever planted is 20 lbs in one year. That pic of your 50 lbs of seed all together is a beautiful sight. I have some big plans for this coming fall and I would like to have a truck load of sang someday too.
Thanks for the pics.
Latt

Turns on best oriental voice imitation: \"ho ratta seed dere, yankee!\"

I look forward to the day when I can take a similar pic!

classicFur: Are you amazed at:
--he lack of size of these roots,
--or impressed with their size?

Whitjr

I am amazed that Bob ended up with probably a little over a lb of dry roots with just 107 roots.

From Scott Persons book: It says that for 9 yr old roots, you would average 285 roots for each dried pound of Wild-Simulated roots. And average 2000 roots for every pound of seed planted. Which would be about 7 lbs of dried roots

If like Bob our roots average 107 roots to the dried pound and harvest about 2000 roots for every lb of seed planted. Then we would end up with about 18.69 lbs of dried root for every lb of seed planted instead of 7 lbs like Persons book suggests. That's a big difference!

classicfur

Whitjr

If we got $900 a lb like Bob Beyfuss did. That would be $10,521 more, per every lb of seed planted(compared to what Scott Persons book says).

Or 18.69 lbs of dried root at $900 a lb equals $16,821 for roots planted from 1 lb of seed.

Anyway, For the qty of dried roots per pound, Bobs numbers compared to Scott Persons numbers are completely different.

classicfur

Thanks for the info... I guess I need to bone up on the Person's book a bit.

I have always found it to be around 200 to 300 roots per dried pound depending on size for mature roots. Anything less than 200 dried roots per lb would be fairly large roots I believe.
Latt

Classicfur,

That does seem like a small number of roots to make a pound of dry (or 3 lbs green).

Just looking at the pic they do look like some decent sized roots though.

I am sure you remember this pic from my birthday hunt last year.



That root - I found growing on a bluff - in that rocky (no doubt mineral rich) soil and I found several like that there and they all looked about the same. Big Ball Roots which all seemed to be very young (5-8 years) old and that one weighed 1.5 oz (green) and as you can see there just is not much of a root neck on it at all - fairly young root.

It would take 32 (1.5 oz roots) to weigh 48 oz or 3 lbs green.

107 roots that weighed 48 oz - that would be about 0.45 oz per root.

I would say that is definately possible in ideal growing conditions for 9 year (or possibly even younger) roots.

TNhunter

For the most part when i have dug wild roots my average is in the 200 to 300 range. The thing about digging wild ginseng is that you dont really know how old the ginseng is until you dig it up. I would guess that since (b.b.) planted the ginseng he would have the advantage of knowing exactly how old the roots are and also would have had the benifit of picking and choosing which plants to take from his patch. he may have dug them indescrimatly or he may have done a select digging either way those are some impressive roots, I never dug a solid pound of 9yr roots and honestly im not going to get my hopes set too high, so as long as i can still make the 200-300 range then my plans are right on schedule, as long as i can still get my 350.00 per pound (this was my guess from 1999) then i am still turning a very good profit. I dont want to even entertain the thought of 900.00 a pound at this point. I hope to be pleasantly surprised. So if you are just starting your ginseng beds lowball your estimates to something like todays prices because 9 years is a long time to stress on how much money you have growing, and with the volotility of the market there is no telling whatsoever about prices 9 years from now but with china now emerging as the only economic superpower and 5000 years of tradition behind ginseng we now have the perfect storm brewing in our hobbies to create a great deal of wealth. The next thing we should all work on is developing a co-op to insure that the best prices are realized. and this works for collectively buying seed as well.