Just got permission to harvest and grow Ginseng on 700 acres and possibly more!

[hvacker]

There's a reason the plants called Jewel Weed.If there is a drop of water on a leaf it will
stand up in a ball and look like a jewel. It's strange where nettles grows jewel weed is not far off.

But about your venture. Notice where a lot of pot is grown in National Forests it's often guarded with
dangerous people. You might need to do the same. I've had to look for booby traps at times.

Could the plants habitat be replicated and the new plants cloned rather than using seeds. That way you'll get
exactly the same plant. This is what the medical pot growers do and probably all growers.
Seeds are often unpredictable.
I know this is one of the fussy plants out there and doesn't domesticate well but it might be possible.
Then all you'd need is a green house.

Some make a living snagging these plants so I would expect pirating on a daily basis.

 

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[RustyGold]

Thank you for the video Frank! I liked it when he said "I have it in the garden in case they're right!

 

[against the wind]

The only thing I know about planting or harvesting Ginseng, is what I have seen on Documentaries. It seems that the people who had the right to harvest, spent a lot of time chasing down poachers.
What are the penalties if you get caught poaching Ginseng?? If you're doing things legally by pressing charges against poachers, what are the charges and penalties?

 

[huntsman53]

The only thing I know about planting or harvesting Ginseng, is what I have seen on Documentaries. It seems that the people who had the right to harvest, spent a lot of time chasing down poachers.
What are the penalties if you get caught poaching Ginseng?? If you're doing things legally by pressing charges against poachers, what are the charges and penalties?

Don't believe everything the documentaries say or show about Ginseng. A lot of the stuff is edited and made up by the Directors, Producers and Editors supposedly to make the shows more interesting to the viewers. Appalachian Outlaws was full of lies and BS and especially when they showed someone bringing in 14 pounds or so of green (un-dried) Ginseng roots, then you would notice them break to another scene where the guy was getting paid thousands of dollars. That was bull, he was selling green roots and they were showing them paying him later for dry Ginseng roots he brought in but everyone thought he was being paid for the green Ginseng roots. I would almost bet that they were using already bought Ginseng roots to stage a lot of the BS scenes. Although there is some BS on the show "Dirty Money", it is more authentic with much less untruths than Appalachian Outlaws. In fact, I know Billy Taylor Sr., his sons, Billy Jr. and Caleb personally and when the Producers asked them to come back for another season of Dirty Money and Billy Sr. found out that they wanted to shoot some segments of them chasing poachers, Billy Sr. said no. He is a Christian and does not believe in lying in real life or in made for television shows.

From what I understand about the penalties for poaching Ginseng on Private, National Forest, State Forest and National Park lands, is that it may now be considered a felony. This is due to Wild North American Ginseng now being a Federally recognized Endangered Species. Some states vary on the degree of the penalty, so you will have to check online sources for your state or call a local Department of Natural Resources or Agriculture offices to inquire. The link below will give you some info that is helpful.

https://www.fws.gov/international/plants/american-ginseng.html


Frank

 

[huntsman53]

I see that it IS native to this area, but I don't remember seeing it in the wild here.

Just look for a plant with leaves that are fairly similar looking to Lambs Quarter but with lots more branches and stems and orange widespread flowers. Lambs Quarter will often grow straight up and not branch off too much, although some plants do. Lambs Quarter has white close-cropped flower clusters and later in the summer a purplish/magenta coloring will appear on some along the stem and inner portions of the leaves.


Frank

 

[kcm]

We only have one plant in our area with orange flowers - the orange wood lily.

Have a few yellow flowers, couple of purples, but mostly white. Lots of nettle, but don't remember seeing the Jewel Weed. ...Will keep looking.

 

[Ima digger]

Huntsman, My family has had large amounts of land in TN for generations. We have never been able to keep the ginseng thieves off of it. I can hardly keep them out of my back yard, and you would not believe that where I live. You got to work and live and can't be walking the woods all the time, like the THEIVES do. I have always respected private property, and wouldn't walk your ground, or take as small a thing as a rock from it. But a lot of people take what they want, anywhere they can get it. A lot of people figure ginseng in their yearly budget here, and most don't own land. Could you put up a chain link fence, and grow it close to home? The law here would do nothing to help you, maybe they would prosecute where you come from. I sure hope you could make something work for you. It is a very reasonable idea, to grow a crop. It is just that the crop is so valuable, and traditionaly, people are in the habit of stealing it. I'm hoping you can adapt the idea to your advantage, Ima

 

[hvacker]

We only have one plant in our area with orange flowers - the orange wood lily.

Have a few yellow flowers, couple of purples, but mostly white. Lots of nettle, but don't remember seeing the Jewel Weed. ...Will keep looking.

The plants in your area. It's also known as "Touch-me-not" because the ripe flower pods pop when touched.
It's also been said to be an antidote for poison ivy. The plant can grow 3-5 ft tall.
The plant often has yellow flowers but there is a spotted jewel weed with orange flowers.

 

[kcm]

The plants in your area. It's also known as "Touch-me-not" because the ripe flower pods pop when touched.
It's also been said to be an antidote for poison ivy. The plant can grow 3-5 ft tall.
The plant often has yellow flowers but there is a spotted jewel weed with orange flowers.

I know the maps show that it's native in my county. It's even in the county next to me. However, it doesn't state that you can find it "all over" the county. We've lived here over a decade. I have NEVER seen this plant in our area, whether growing in the wild or in someone's yard. We don't get out much, but I know this specific area fairly well. Not great, but... I know that we have nettle and thistle on our land. But they were brought here from the last place we lived, the seeds hitching a ride on the brush hog of our old tractor. And so far, I've yet to see anything that even somewhat resembles "Touch-Me-Not' or Jewel Weed".

 

[huntsman53]

Thanks again everyone for the comments and advice! I will try to reply to a few later but I am depleted after another day of hunting rough mountain terrain for Ginseng. I got in the woods around 8:15 AM and did not get back to my' truck until about 2:30 PM. I covered a lot of ground above the cliffs/bluffs of the same hollow and ridges that I search Monday, only found 6 Ginseng plants and only dug the 2 that were legal to dig. The bonus was finding all kind of trails and bedding locations used by Whitetail and/or maybe Blacktail Deer, plus what looks like trails and runs used by Wild Boar and/or Feral Hogs and there is a possibility that some Red Deer could be in this area. A fairly large amount of Red Deer escaped from a Deer Farm in the next County to the West and the location I am searching for Ginseng, is only a few miles from that County line. If found to be in this location, I would have to get a special permit to hunt them as only the County where they escaped is open for hunting them. I doubt that it would be a problem a the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency wants to eliminate them from the wild due to the possibility of them spreading disease amongst the Whitetail and Blacktail Deer populations! I will try to get some pics uploaded later.


Frank

 

[huntsman53]

Although I took quite a few pics yesterday during my hunt for Ginseng on the same property where I have permission and a contract to grow Ginseng, some of them came out blurry. When I deleted the blurry pics and took new ones some did not take and I did not notice. In my defense, it was muggy and hot from the get-go, only got hotter and I came close to having a heat stroke several times. While I normally take pics of every Ginseng plant I find, there was only 4 pics of 5 Ginseng plants when I got home and downloaded them to my' PC. However, I actually found 6 Ginseng plants and thought I had pics for all of them. As promised, I have included them below. I also took some pics looking off the cliffs/bluffs down the hollow and ridges but some also came out blurry, so I won't include them now. I will include pics of a broken up Old Timey Chesnut tree that has likely been laying on the ground since the 1930's and has one section (a 30+ foot section from the roots upwards on the lower part of the trunk) that appears solid and cuttable for making lumber. I will advise the property owner of it, in case he wishes to retrieve this part of the tree as it is very valuable if this section is pretty much solid. Oh, and I included a pic of my' Marlin Model 882SS .22 Magnum Rifle that I took along for snakes and coyotes.


Frank

 

[kcm]

Did your camera go from a cool spot into the hot & muggy air quickly? If so, probably got condensation inside, or maybe just on the lens.

 

[huntsman53]

Did your camera go from a cool spot into the hot & muggy air quickly? If so, probably got condensation inside, or maybe just on the lens.

It may have! It was cool on the drive over with fog on the lake and in a lot of the river valleys and I can't remember using the A/C whatsoever. However, there was an apparent temperature inversion where the cooler air settled in the valleys and the warmer air was trapped aloft, so when I got out of the truck about half way up the mountain, the heat and mugginess was stifling.


Frank

P.S. I have included pics looking down the hollows and ridges over the tops of the cliffs/bluffs that I talked about earlier. I walked out the tops of a few of the cliffs/bluffs but I had to watch my footing, so no pics taken from these spots. Again, I am sorry for the blurry pics! I just don't understand what is up with my' cell phone's camera. It will take great, clear and in-focus pics for awhile, then it alternates to blurry which I often delete and retake until I get good ones.

 

[Nitric]

You may already know this about your cell...I don't usually use mine for pics, the other day I used it and my camera when I went on my short hike. A lot of my cell pics were blurry because it has a delay, so when I thought it took the pic I moved, then it took the pic while I was moving. I have no clue if this is what's happening to you, but a a couple of your blurry pics kind of look like it could be.

 

[kcm]

Don't know about "all", but of the digital cameras I've seen, they each had a setting where you could choose a preset time to review a snapped photo, or it would go quickly to the next shot when you hit the shutter, with no review. Seems they'd engineer these things where it's automatic; that it'd take pics quickly, while showing the most recent image captured.

 

[huntsman53]

You may already know this about your cell...I don't usually use mine for pics, the other day I used it and my camera when I went on my short hike. A lot of my cell pics were blurry because it has a delay, so when I thought it took the pic I moved, then it took the pic while I was moving. I have no clue if this is what's happening to you, but a a couple of your blurry pics kind of look like it could be.

Jason,

Being unsteady when taking the pics probably accounts for most of the blurry ones. Although you can't see it in the pics, most of the time I am standing on rocks which lay on or underlay most of this whole property and many of them move when you step on or are standing on them.


Frank

 

[Swaveab]

All cameras have a delay to one degree or another. When I was in the market, I bought a Cannon (forgot model) and it was expensive. It took a nice photo if you stayed put for long enough time. I returned it and bought a different one after I discussed the matter with the salesman. I wound up buying a Sony DSC-730 because it had one of the fastest responses I saw.

As to growing ginseng, it is a very picky plant to grow and won't grow just anywhere. It may grow in one place and 10 feet away it won't grow. Poachers and irresponsible people who fail to plant new ones from the seeds are dooming that plant from that area. It is endangered for this reason as well as from the spread of civilization and people who are careless near them either deliberately or by accident. The law does not consider your stupidity or greed as reason for any endangerment to these plants and I'm not implying anyone here is doing that, but I have to say for general reading that they are a very fragile plant that takes many years before it is useful let alone lawful to pick.

If you are successful with your planting of the ginseng Huntsman53 then that's great as you do a service in preserving this endangered plant, but that's the easy part as the hard part, as has been mentioned, is keeping other people away from it as they look upon it as money laying on the ground.

 

[kcm]

Going back to the cameras for a moment, I stumbled across something that surprised me. All of these digital cameras (that I've seen, anyway) are set by default to show each pic in the display for a pre-determined amount of time. I found out purely by accident that this can be disabled so that the camera recovers much quicker. My wife has a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone. It used to be PAINFULLY slow due to showing the snapped image. I disabled that function, and now it'll take pics faster than we can imagine!! It can probably take about 5 images per second in Still mode! However, in order to see if your pics came out, you have to go into the folder and review them. So don't just assume that your digital camera is slow. Check the settings. ...I need to change that on my Canon camera as well. ...Got a 64-gig SDXC card but only take a few pics at a time. ...But then I take a lot of video with it as well.

 

[Tnmountains]

Hope you are a young man if you plan on planting. Big price difference in wild versus planted. We are covered up this year. Good luck in your ventures !

 

[Tnmountains]

Oh yeah in the places where the sun does not shine and look for tulip poplars and wild ginger and you will find the sang.