TOPIC: walmart bag

In reply to the comment made about walmart bags. I have been digging and selling for 25 years. I dont consider myself a rookie.A lot of the dealers business has been built off the backs of rednecks with sang in walmart bags. I have sold for 25 years and have never been turned down due to what I brought my sang in. I have dug hundreds of pounds over the years and never been told of these types of quality of sang until recent.I work at ups and see barrels of sang come through. Doesnt it all get ground up anyway. Make enough diggers mad and I guess you guys will have to hit the woods fight the snakes , bees , bears , pour a little sweat and nurse your aching feet. the usfs determines a three prong to be a mature plant and acceptable to dig.If its good enough for the us goverment it good enough for me!!

Unfortunately, it appears that what's good enough for you and the government may not be good enough to bring top dollar in the market for very much longer. And the market's opinion, determines the payday.

i gently place mine in brown paper bags but i think its not what you store it in its how you treet what you store i was always told never store any type of herb in a plastic bag or it will draw moistier and mold to that i say fooie if you completely dry your roots they will do just fine in a plastic bag as long as you dont mistreat it.i have watched dealers shake the heck out of a barrel of ginseng to fit as much in it as possible but i dont know how there buyer felt about that i do know the better we take care of our roots the better for us all in the long run.

ncinsang,
That's a misconception on all ginseng being ground up. Only the broken and undesirable ends being ground.
Good ginseng will be sold as whole roots.

I think you are referring to my comment. Let me clarify.

I have nothing against walmart....I spend most of my money there unfortunately.

I have put ginseng in walmart bags myself...but only for a short transport and never when it was dry.

I suggest to all my diggers to use the plastic tote type tubs from walmart. The shoe box size is only a dollar and the lids do not seal air tight. So, once your ginseng is completely dry, you can store and transport it in the plastic tubs without it getting all busted up.

Rootman and TonyL are correct. The market is moving from quantity to quality. Most of the ground up products are supplied by the cultivated market at around $50/lb. Those fine roots are worth as much as the whole root is worth as long as they stay on the root. Once they break off, they are worth less than $200/lb in today's market.

My comment was referring to the way some folks handle their ginseng. If you don't take care of it after you find it -starting with the method in which you dig that root- the price goes down from there. If you dig every three prong plant you see regardless of the size of the root, you are part of the problem.

If the shoe fits..

When I started getting in to ginseng a few years ago I studied up on it. Since the area I live in ginseng is virtually extinct due to a century of over harvesting (most people in my area don't even know what ginseng is anymore it's so rare) and I would have to grow it all from scratch. One of the places I looked was Chinese herbal sites that sell American Ginseng in China. Quite a lot can be drawn from the product and prices of the ginseng they sell. Only crap root is \"ground up\" sliced up actually. If this happens to your root then it's almost as bad as cultivated. If it gets \"processed\" they are trying to hide it's low quality from the end consumer. They slice it up and label it \"wild\" so people can't tell it doesn't look it. The high quality root is packaged with a small number of other high quality roots, untouched, and sold at a premium. Super high quality roots are pinned to a board with needles separating and displaying it's root hairs and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Welcome to the forum, Ncinsang and TonyL!

I have to agree with Rootman, BCastle, and Ittiz ...

Ginseng is all but worthless to Americans. The money comes from selling it to Asian countries who deem it valuable, therefor we need to always be current with what the end customer's wants are for the the product they are spending their money on. What worked 25 years ago doesn't work anymore. If we as diggers don't create a product that the end customer wants, we're just wasting our own time and money.

Most of us, as diggers, only can gather information about what the end user wants, but talking with dealers and learning from the information they tell us.

Screwdriver dug up broken roots with no hairs, thrown into the bottom of a backpack and flung on the desk of a dealer isn't going to get you top dollar anymore, and likely won't get you any money at all.

This exact sentiment I have used in my business for last few years .when my diggers make money I make money. The informed digger is a better digger. They get paid well and I don't have to work nearly as hard to sell good ginseng . Not as much loss to pick out either

knob wrote:

This exact sentiment I have used in my business for last few years .when my diggers make money I make money. The informed digger is a better digger. They get paid well and I don't have to work nearly as hard to sell good ginseng . Not as much loss to pick out either

Exactly. I'd much rather be paying $1000/lb.