Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Ginseng.

I purchased these seeds. You are indeed required to plant the seeds from any plant you harvest. However, Ginseng will typically begin to flower around it's third season, and harvest will not commence for at LEAST another 3-4 years after that...so, after year 3, and up until the plant is dug, your "harvest" will be seeds...hand picked, stratified for a year, then planted in the fall, with any extra sold off.

I intend to purchase and plant additional seeds each year, until my own plants can furnish me with all the seeds I require. Eventually, I should have plantings of various ages, many of which will be seed producing, and will furnish far more than the 2-3 pounds of seed I will need for my own use. The surplus will be sold, which is where the seeds available in the marketplace right now have come from....surplus from other growers.

Dried Ginseng root... $650-675 per pound, as of 11/30
Ginseng seed... $112 per pound.

Guy out here sells a lot of ginseng he was telling me last summer it was going $1000/lb.. (He was looking for a spot too hunt it where I deer hunt)

Turley's ginseng doubt he has a website or anything but he's got a big ole sign in his yard..

I'll bet it hits $850-900 easy enough. Over $50 an ounce.

Turley Ginseng Co., John Turley, ---- Hazel Dell Rd., Greenville, IL 62246; 618-664-2871. My main business is buying and selling whole goldenseal root & herb. I handle goldenseed in small or very large bulk quantity. Also selling wild ginseng roots.


Nope, no website, but easy enough to find.

That's him

Remember those seeds I planted back in December....

Success! I've got 'sang fry!

Doesn't look like $700 a pound does it? Long, long way to go

Sweet! I got my eye on this thread.

Well done Sprkplug!
I have seen a few amatuer ginsing grow ops in Idaho/Montana, fascinating stuff.
Super excited for your adventure, I wish you all the luck in the deep woods.
Keep the updates coming, I will be following closely.

It kind of looks like another plant seedling that's worth a lot more then $700 a pound. That third leaf throws it off though.

Good going,Tony.

Still growing??????

Yep....looks good. Planning on planting another pound or two of seeds this fall.

A grouping of ginseng.

So what kind of dirt/conditions does this need to grow?

It may be something worth trying out.

We used to dig Snake Root back about 20 years ago.

That's looking really good Spark!!! Good for you!

Did you put mulch around them? The newest photo makes it look like it. That previous pic where you raked the leaves into rows, did you plant the seeds on the bare ground area of that? Then covered them with the leaves again?

Where did you buy the seed stock, if you don't mind saying? PM if you want.

By that last photo, looks like you planted the seeds close together. All your rows come up that good?

My neighbor plants ginseng all over my woods. Then again he plants a lot of other stuff too---if you know what I mean. After this year, I think I'm ready to give up the market farming and go into roots.

F&C, that latest photo was taken in the flower bed beside the house. I held over some seed from last fall, and waited until this spring to plant it. Actually, I held it too long and it sprouted in the fridge. Rather than take it to the woods, I scratched the mulch away in a shady spot that has trouble growing anything else, and scattered it there. It did far better than I thought it would.

After I posted last night, I decided a photo was in order, so I took that shot. My woods grown plants look just as good however.

You're right on with the photo showing the rows. I raked the leaves back to bare ground, scratched up the surface with a rake, dropped the seeds by hand, (trying for a coverage of 4 seeds per sq.ft.), and pulled the leaves back over top. That's all you do for a wild-simulated planting. I was very pleased with the germination rate, but remember....many of these plants will surely succumb before the 8-10 years needed for harvest are reached.

I'll send you a PM with info on where I got my seeds. I don't want to post a non-PondBoss approved link in the forum.

MRHELLO, Ginseng prefers low PH and high calcium.....very high calcium, on the order of 4000 lbs per acre. The more common nutrients usually associated with plant growth ( potassium, phosphorous, nitrogen) are not as important. Some growers are experimenting with adding gypsum to planting sites. Sugar Maples are favored trees for planting under, as their leaves retain calcium when dropped in the fall, enriching the soil. There's something extremely satisfying about tapping maples for their sap in late winter, knowing that under my feet the Ginseng is awaiting spring.

Most important: Ginseng prefers 80% shade....it will not flourish, and may perish, if it receives too much sun.

Dry weight has passed $50 an ounce in some areas already this season.....rumor says it will go higher by the end of Nov...

Grow plants, GROW!

Sparkie, I'm thinking if you'd bury a 1# HBG next to each plant, you'd be in the money.

No, you don't have to thank me for this suggestion, just trying to help out.

Come now Yolk.....combining the extreme aggressiveness and tenacity of HBG with the miraculous healing and restorative powers of ginseng? Left to marinate underground?? Do you realize what the outcome would be?

A plague of unstoppable zombie fish.

I'm carrying enough baggage around already....I don't need "Author of the Apocalypse" added to the load.




Wait a minute...perhaps in low doses, infused in daily feedings of AQ500...it could provide the final push needed to get over the plateau...

Yolk you're a freakin' genius. May I include your name on the acceptance speech for my Nobel?

Checked on the Sang' while I was in the woods. It's coming up yet again, and I've got some two-prongers in the mix this year!

Nice man...

Two pronger setting it's first berry. Sweet!!!

How old is the plant?

I think he documented it all in this thread..

Two years old.