Little Italy, Clay County, West Virginia

Transcription

Where does ginseng grow? Well, ginseng is native to both North America as well as Asia. In terms of where it grows in the wild, it prefers to grow in rather cool, well-drained north or northeast facing wooded forestland. In terms of the nutrient requirements of ginseng, it really is not a big feeder in the wild. It doesn't necessarily need a lot of fertile soil but it does have a high demand for calcium so typically soils that have at least three to four thousand pounds of calcium per acre would be suitable for growing ginseng in a wooded situation. Other nutrients not nearly as important as that. It requires shade, so obviously it's gotta be a forested area but it also requires a cold treatment every winter so ginseng will only grow as far south as some places in Georgia... doesn't grow in Florida or it doesn't grow in a place that is the least bit tropical. It has to have about a thousand hours temperatures around 40 to 45 degrees each winter in order for the plant to break dormancy. The best place the probably try to grow ginseng saying would be places where ginseng probably at one time grew wild or maybe still is growing wild and the northeast the first thing you would look for would be a sugar maple forest. Sugar maple is a species that has probably co-evolved with ginseng to the point where it contributes something that ginseng needs which is calcium and the calcium that the ginseng may be utilizing is coming from the leaves of the sugar maple trees which are about 1.75 percent calcium by dry weight... so in the Northeast the number one companion species tree species for ginseng would be sugar maple. As you get a little bit further south in ginseng's range sugar maple becomes less common and once you get down much south of Pennsylvania you'll see ginseng growing under things like tulip popular and black walnut in some cases Buckeye but a different forest composition than we would have in the northeast. I rarely suggest a soil test unless the site I consider to be borderline, because this complete soil analysis as performed by any university laboratory, it can pretty much tell me if ginseng will not grow there but it certainly cannot tell me if ginseng will grow there. So, if I see that the soil levels of calcium are let's say two thousand pounds per acre and that's a little bit low but it's marginal. In situations like that I might suggest that the potential grower add some gypsum. Gypsum is calcium sulfate but it does not affect pH of the soil. Most people who want to add calcium to soil will add limestone. Limestone will raise the soil pH...if you raise the soil pH you make other nutrients more available to the plants and in the case of ginseng, adding supplemental nutrients is generally not a good thing. As a matter of fact, people who try to fertilize ginseng that's growing in a forest situation quite often end up getting diseases... so nutrients in general seem to predispose ginseng to diseases. So I would never recommend adding either compost or manure or any nutrients whatsoever to a ginseng site. Ginseng does not like to be fertilized... again, unless you're growing it under artificial conditions under shade cloth in which case you're trying to grow big roots in a hurry and you're prepared to use a lot of chemicals to prevent diseases. Much better to look at the plants that are growing there to begin with to determine if it's a suitable site for ginseng than to test the soil. The acid test when it comes to "can I grow ginseng on the site?" has to do with the herbaceous perennials that are growing on the forest floor. Even though there may be no ginseng present at all the presence of plants such as Baneberry, maidenhair fern rattlesnake fern, blue cohash, foam flower and to a certain extent stinging nettle... these are plants that indicate that the conditions are just right for ginseng. The fact that they're there tells you number one that there's not too much deer predation... because these are the types of plants that will quickly be wiped out if there's too many deer. In general, any population of deer that's more than 15 or 20 per square mile many of these plants are going to drop that the ecosystem. So if these plants aren't present there the deer have probably eaten them or it's not a good site for ginseng and if you can grow ginseng there, the deer are probably going to eat that too. So, the first thing I look at it in a forest besides the trees which are pretty obvious is to look at what plants growing in the understory.... stinging nettle tells me there's adequate moisture Bainberry and maidenhair fern tell me that the calcium levels are probably pretty high and all those plants combined tell me that the shade is correct too. If I see things like dandelions growing there... other sun loving plants, well that might indicate that the site is a bit too sunny. If there's a lot of hemlock trees and pine trees and there's very little growing underneath them... well obviously that indicates that the site's to shady. Shade-loving herbaceous perennials in general is what we're looking for.