TOPIC: Has Anyone Pre-Ordered Seeds for Fall Yet

I feel good now that I know my first seed planting was a success. I'm now ready to put some serious seeds in the ground, and I was wondering if anyone has locked in an order for fall seeds yet. From what I have read, seed may be in short supply and locking up at least a couple of pounds in the next few weeks may not be a bad idea for me.

I also had a question for the veteran growers out there. This year, all of the seeds that have come up so far have come from one place, so I will definately order from them again. I'm thinking about placing some smaller seed orders from different places just to get some diversity. What I would like to know is, if you order a pound of seed from Company X and a couple of ounces of seed from Company Y, can you mix those two together and plant them in the same bed? Would it be better to keep the seeds seperate and plant the beds close to each other? I'm very curious to know what some of the seasoned growers thoughts are. Thanks in advance.

Jacquo

I usually place my order for seeds in June or July. Even in years that they claim that seeds are in short supply, I always have been able to get the seeds I order.

I also tell them to ship the first week of Oct. Oct usually works well for planting in Maine with the leaves almost ready to fall.

If you order seeds from two or more suppliers, I would not mix them together. If there is any disease in the seeds from one supplier, then you would be possibly be spreading the disease to good healthy seeds from the other supplier.

I also would keep the seeds from different suppliers in seperate beds. That would help to seperate diseased seeds from good seeds.

I think the beds could be close together, but plant seeds from only one supplier within each bed.

I know you mentioned earlier that some of your seedlings were growing under the mulch. You need to make sure that the mulch is not too thick. If the seedlings seem to be struggling to get through, you could give them a little help by removing some of the mulch. I know each year I find some areas where the mulch is a little to thick, so I have to remove some of the mulch to allow the seedlings to find their way through. Other wise the stems become long and lanky by the time they emerge. And some times they won't make it to the top.

Good Luck!
classicfur

Jacquo,

I ordered two pounds of seeds from a shade grower in Wisconsin last year. I am waiting to see how they do. If they come up good, I will probably buy 15-20 pounds from him this year because they are fairly inexpensive- 45 dollars per pound. I will probably order them early, like you.

I didnt plant these seeds anywhere near my other ginseng in case they are bad (diseased)

I have bought seeds from 5 other places over the years and have most of them in the same general area, but have always kept them seperate (never mixed and planted in the same bed) .If you did get a bad batch of seeds you could ruin the rest of your plantings by mixing them.

Lenno

Classicfur and Lenno,

Good point about disease. I certainly don't want 100 bad seeds ruining 7500. That would be a costly boo-boo both in effort and money. I plan on diversifying my seeds, but definately keep them in seperate beds. As I have been checking out my beds the this week, I've already been scoping out sites for this years planting.

Lenno, 45 dollars for a pound of stratified seeds is a heck of a price. The bulk of my seeds were around 90 I think, and I thought that was a pretty good deal. Those 90 dollar seeds are the ones that are coming up right now, so it's difficult not to want to plant more of those.

Jacquo,

All of the other seeds I bought were 100 or more. Just thought I would try some cheaper seed. Hope they are as good.

Lenno

Lenno, Jacquo

When I started buying seeds seven years ago from Paul Hsu, I was paying $52 a pound. Now I'm paying $70 a pound from the same supplier. This is for Field grown seed from Wisconsin. Not too bad of a price. Especially since I have had good success from Hsu's seeds.

classicfur

I was talking to a well known ginseng expert about seed last month. He told me that Canadian ginseng seed producers are on the cutting edge and are producing some of the best Field cultivated seed out there at a fair price. This is a well known and respected person in the ginseng community. I hate so sound coy when I do not identify the experts name. I just do not like to say anything publicly that was said in a private conversation with out their permission and I would hate to cause a problem or misquote. But I do feel it is important to all of us who have considered buying Field cultivated ginseng seed to know that the Canadian Seed may be a good choice and worth looking into. Some of you may be buying Canadian seed already.

There has been many discussions on this message board about the advantages and disadvantages of buying Wild Simulated Seed verses Field Cultivated Seed pertaining to germination, price, disease etc.

Another forum member and I are thinking about placing a large order of seed and splitting it. I am really interested in buying some Canadian Seed to see how it does but I think he would rather buy some seed from a supplier near his area and I can appreciate that. I would be interested in both.

Who knows I may have already bought Canadian seed and not even known it as I did buy a few pounds of Field Cultivated seed last year. They were from a seed company in Wisconsin. As we all know seed supply was short and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the so called Wisconsin seed may have been Canadian seed.

MIXING SEED
I agree with everything that has been said as to why to keep the ginseng seed separated. You can track germination rates from one supplier from another. It keeps the seed separate in case of disease. It would be a great loss to let diseased seed ruin good seed. Many of my ginseng beds are from one seed source only. I have them growing 5 yards from seed beds with seed from a different supplier for cross pollination purposes.

Now with all of that said I do have some seed beds with seed that I have mixed from 5 different suppliers. This seed was from 4 great \"Wild Simulated\" growers and 1 well respected Wisconsin field grown seed supplier. I mixed 1 pound from each of the 5 suppliers and therefore ended up with 5 mixed pounds. I planted 1 mixed pound per 1600 square foot. I did this 5 times until all 5 pounds were planted. I really like the idea of having this genetic diversity growing side by side in the same bed.

Assuming none of the seed is diseased I am really looking forward to seeing what the outcome is after 10 years. I would recommend everyone try an isolated bed of mixed seeds. If you do not want to invest a great deal of money in it, just take an ounce from 3 or 4 suppliers and mix it. Then plant those 3 or 4 oz somewhere to see how it does. If it fails due to disease you would not be out that much. If it is successful it would be interesting to see how those mixed beds do in comparison to the other beds pertaining to root quality and seed head output.
OK got to go Mushroom hunting now.
Good luck,
Latt

Latt

I don't find any information on your statement of:

\"Canadian ginseng seed producers are on the cutting edge and are producing some of the best Field cultivated seed out there at a fair price.\"

Can you provide some info on this so we can understand why this statement is true, and who do we buy seeds from in Canada?

I only did a breif search. One seller said:

\"Canadian ginseng seed, grown in Ontario, is available for shipping to most parts of the world. Stratified seed for fall planting is available from September to November. Green seed, which requires stratification for one year before planting, is available from mid August to September.

Unfortunately regulations make it impractical for us to send most orders of less than 50 pounds out of Canada. Orders of 1 pound or more can be provided for Canadian addresses\"

What makes seeds from Canada different than seeds from America?

classicfur

How would some of you guys feel about compiling a list of stratified seed sellers? I really want to put together a diverse batch of seed this year, and I would like to learn about all the options available to me. Here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Harding's
Hsu
Hardwood Ginseng
Glacial
Ozark Mountain

This is a little off topic but since we are talking seed I'll go ahead and throw this in there. I have about ten pound of seed that come from a seed source in Ohio and only but a few are up so far, a very few. Probably 50% of all the other seed planted are up and running. I checked the Ohio seed beds yesterday and the seeds are still viable and the majority of them haven't even split open yet. Here in tn we already have 3 and 4 prong unfolded and the temp has been in the 80s the past couple days. Usually all my plantings emerge about the same time but Im beginning to get a bit concerned. Any thoughts? I'm hoping there clock is adapted to a more northern climate and they are waiting a bit but I'm beginning to wonder.