Anyone have any experience with seed from Shady Oak farms in WV?

Thanks

Mhowa i also would like to know if anyone has had any dealings with them, because they seem like the best bang for the buck. I just got done checking out there webpage and they seem to be a real good company. I believe i am going to try them out this year. Because in the past couple of months i have talked to several people about seeds and each person has either had good or bad dealings with just about every seed dealer on the internet. So what i am saying is probably doesn't matter where you order from because you can probably get bad seed from just about anyone.

I bought a pound of seed from shady oaks this year.Paid 60 for 1 pound.Anyway,I got them the other day and noticed some bad seeds.They had red/orange sporodochia growing on the husks. There is some information about this disease in Scott Persons book. I am now afraid to plant any of the seeds thinking more could be bad that arent showing signs of disease yet. If I plant diseased seeds it will likely spread to all of my other ginseng in the area. If anyone has bought seed from there be careful to inspect them. I am not trying to give shady oaks a bad name,just sharing some information about my experience. I guess this could happen with any seed dealer.

This is for anyone that buys seeds, grab ten seeds at random and crack them open along the seam with your pocket knife.Each seed should be white with a small embryo of a plant visible. The embryo tells you the seed is viable or has fully stratified.As for any disease it will be seen as some form of seed and embryo damage.
Count how many seeds are bad out of the ten and that is the percentage that is bad. Test this several times if you see a problem to be sure you did not fluke out.
Contact the seller if there is a problem!!!

Guy

lenno wrote:
I bought a pound of seed from shady oaks this year.Paid 60 for 1 pound.Anyway,I got them the other day and noticed some bad seeds.They had red/orange sporodochia growing on the husks. There is some information about this disease in Scott Persons book. I am now afraid to plant any of the seeds thinking more could be bad that arent showing signs of disease yet. If I plant diseased seeds it will likely spread to all of my other ginseng in the area. If anyone has bought seed from there be careful to inspect them. I am not trying to give shady oaks a bad name,just sharing some information about my experience. I guess this could happen with any seed dealer.


Lenno,

The thing to have done in a situation like this is to contact the company and they would have replaced your seeds or refunded your money. I have been dealing in seeds for a long time and have never seen what you are talking about on seeds no matter what their condition.

Lenno,

One thing you should do instead of throwing them away is to mix a bleach mixture of 9 parts water to 1 part bleach and soak the seeds in it for no longer than 10 minutes then rinse them real well. Let me say here that had you contacted us we could have worked something out with you. I have checked all seeds that have been shipped and to my knowledge none were bad but sometimes things happen. We do offer a 10 day return policy but we can do nothing beyond that point since we have no way of controling how the seeds are handled. I am sorry for the problem but if a customer does not contact us with the problem we cannot do anything for you.

Chris

I did not get my seed from Shadyoak's. But I did notice a few seeds that had very small dried red bits on them. I just thought it was red berry pulp dried on. But now I am worried. What does anyone think this is:

one more pic

Update on Shady Oaks ginseng seeds from last year. I took out the bad seeds and treated the rest in bleach/water. I had good germination and the plants are doing fine. As I said, I was not trying to give the company a bad name-I was just sharing my experience.

I did get some seed from Shady Oak and they seemed to sprout just fine. I had no problems with them.