Ginseng

This Plant, Root and its Seeds have been a mainstay for me since I was about 8 years old. And far less risky than some of my illegal enterprises in my youth between 14 and 17 It is a great source of dependable income year in and year out once you get it going. I won't dig the few wild patches that I know of that are left. It has been dug to near extinction in many areas or subdivisions take out entire wild patches. Of the 50 or so I used to harvest from every fall in my youth 3 still remain undiscovered by others and untouched by greed. Kind of sad as those patches were harvested by my Great Great Grandpa, Great Grandpa, Grandpa and then passed on to me.

I do still visit those 3 patches every year and dig up a couple of the older plants to transplant into my patches here to make *Wild Seed* to keep my patches here planted and growing and refresh the sap a bit in my overall wild strains.

I harvest a plot every 10 years and have ten 1/8th acre plots of wild. They average 62.5 pounds per plot each year. Price is down this year, I typically get top $$$ for my roots as they are very high quality and properly handled and dried. I am looking at $585 per pound for my wild harvest this year VS $870 for my wild last year. A lot of factors go into that price, the biggest factor is the sheer volume dug out of the woods last year... when everyone was getting $700-$800 per pound so there was a large surplus of around 60,000 pounds that only recently got worked out of the system. But 62.5 DRY x $585 = is $36,562 of relatively easy income going into winter.

I also grow Wild Simulated on 5 acres. It produces around 100 dry pounds per plot. I harvest these plots every at 10 years old as well, those plots are .625 acres each. Looking at around $375 per dry pound of wild simulated this year. Also down from $465 of last year. But like with the wild a nice bit of cash going into winter.

Don't waste yer time with cultivated under natural or artificial shade. On a great year you will get $50 per pound and more often than less than $20 per pound. It grows too fast, the roots are MUCH heavier and of very low quality. Anyone familiar with seng can spot cultivated crap 10 miles away. It is the time, age and stress of growing wild that makes wild and wild simulated so much more valuable. Cultivated is harvested at 4-6 years old and typically yields 2000 - 2200 dry pounds per acre.

I just finished up putting my wild in the barrel to ship to my buyer and filled the drying racks up with the wild simulated that I will ship in late November. LOL about the time my bank will release the funds from the Check for the Wild. Banks are getting bad about holding funds from large checks for 14-60 days. After spending 4+ decades in this business you get to know people and develop good relationships with the right people. I Only do business with two Dealer/Exporters now days instead of the Dealers that sell to the Dealer Exporters. If you are digging or producing more than 50 pounds it is well worth building relationships with the big ballers in the business. If you you are only doing a few pounds or less those guys, those guys are not even going to talk to you. So you want to find a honest local or regional dealer. Some of those dealers are total crooks that will generously offer you 50% of what it really worth after penciling fine ginseng down to low grade garbage and then selling to the exporter as fine premium.

To be fair a lot of people should dig it and take it straight to the dealer because they devalue their own roots by improper handling of it. DON'T WASH IT!!! Knock the dirt of it. The dealers, Exporters and end buyers don't want to see scrubbed clean roots. Slow dry it in a low humidity building or room with enough fan action to move the air a little bit. I dry my root down over 60 days. Seen a lot of folks put the fans to it and dry it down in 30 days but a lot of it was not dry at the core and it ended up with mildew and mold making it worthless. Saw one person bring in a bunch to dealer friend that she had dried in a dehydrator........ It was worth 20% of what it otherwise would have been. Everything about quality ginseng is Slowwwwww. If you ain't gonna learn to do it right or can't be bothered to do it right sell it green and let the dealer dry it down It takes 300 average 11-12 year old wild roots to make 1 dry pound. A good dealer calculates what the green will dry down to and pays you a fair price minus a little for his or her time to dry it down. You will come out way ahead that way vs cleaning and drying down on your own if you don't know what you are doing.

The Picture is one I dug up today from a 9 year old wild simulated plot to get a gauge on what next years harvest will look like.

Security and OPSEC Kind of like the illusion of prepper OPSEC eventually someone will catch on to what you are doing. Whether it is a hunter trespassing or a any other variety of trespasser someone will eventually stumble across your patches and it don't take long for everyone interested in the subject to know you are growing Ginseng. Dogs, Cameras, and Motion Sensors around the patches are critical, if you want to keep yer seng. Don't hesitate to push the States Attorney to prosecute the Johnny Sneakums criminally for theft and trespassing. Then go after them in civil court as well. Pretty easy to do with quality cameras recording them digging up your highly valuable root in your patches on your private property. You want the locals to know you take it seriously and it is going to cost them dearly. The last guy that stole from my plots, gets out after 2 years with good behavior in January and is going to come work for me after he gets out Hey I got nothing against someone making a mistake and paying for it and getting straight with the world and being a better man because of it. Its the ones that don't learn from their mistakes and keep repeating them that I have a problem with. Where I draw the line is with sex offenders, I am firm believer that rapers and kiddy diddlers should be mandatory executions on the first offense. Won't ever have that kind of vermin on this farm.

Anyway Ginseng can be a nice little or big side income for the back to basics homestead that has the right kind of land and woods to grow it in. The wild simulated seed available now days is great quality with high germination rates. The hard part is waiting the first 10-12 years to harvest the first plot. Once you get it going planting a plot every year for 10-12 years and then harvesting the first and replanting it right after the harvest you have some very regular and dependable income every fall every year after...... Ho0w much depends on you and how much appropriate land you have to grow it.

Watch for the Rare Roots the ones that have a well defined human or animal shape. I have sold some of those for $2,000 up to $5,000 for a individual root. This one is just a typical shaped root and in terms of ginseng nothing special about it.

This root is about as clean as the buyers want a ginseng root to be.

 

I've watched a few videos on the utube on 'seng hunting . Haven't found any growing wild out in the woods yet . Just haven't found any yet . I heard it likes growing on a North facing hill , any truth to this ??? That root looks like it has an arm growing out the side of it's head ,,,,,

 

Never seen any down here either?

 

All the sang I knew about as a kid is gone and most of the woods that it grew in is either corn fields or houses. 70 years ago people had respect for the woods, now if there is any ginseng, the first one to spy it will take it all, not even leave seeds, and ruin most of it before he can sell it. Back home in Minn there used to be some farmed sang, but they all went broke, acres under shade and as you said, $20 a pound after 7 years just didn't cut it. Also, the city idiot that comes out and buys house with woods and either mows under the trees or lets the whole thing go into one massive berry bush, Lady Slippers, Jack in Pulpit, Dutchman's Britches, almost all of the deep wood plants are gone. Need tall trees and deep shade and constant moisture, cut down the "commercial" timber, hard and soft, let the sun in and it dries up and turns into a bramble patch.

With the way things are going now, God help us if things get bad. Nice to hear about your crop and keep it up, I use American Ginseng, the Korean stuff isn't really sang, has some of the medicinal effects but not much,

 

Pretty much a Myth. It grows on all sides of the hills. It has actually been my experience that the East side and South sides have or rather had more patches and the best plants. Sadly we have reached a point in history where I won't talk about the tricks to finding wild patches. What few are left out there are known by someone and carefully harvested. The seeds replanted or taken to extinct patches and planted there, or like I do with about 1/3 of the wild seed bring to my property and start a new wild patch with some 1-3 year old roots and some seeds. Someone else finds those patches they just disappear and become yet another extinct wild patch. LOL get some interesting off shoots on some of the roots Give that one another 10 years and that offshoot could be as big as the main root.

Can't argue with anything you have said. Will just add to the list of wood plants that are disappearing.... Goldenseal, Trillium, Solomons Seal, Mayapple, bloodroot, and a long list of others.

This map is pretty accurate now days. Outside of the highlighted areas the populations are marginal to nonexistent.

 

1. Never under estimate the power of the earth worm, night crawler, and other worms, while they do a good job of composting the woods surface, a lot of plants evolved to grow in the forest duff and the worms compost the soil and it favors grasses, berries, and other plants that like a rich humas type soil. Much of northern Minn had few worms when I was a kid, now they are more common. Not to say it is bad, just different.