All of these came out of the mountain patch. I wanted to check the size of them, and pulled these from beds that I replanted. Now that these are dried up, they are really tiny, however each of them were about the size of a US quarter when i pulled them.

I remember reading here that some one said the 1st year roots had to be a t least 2" long to survive the winter... was that 2" long including the thready roots as well as the main body?

Any of you folks have something of yours to compare with?

Whitjr,
As long as they have a healthy growth bud on them like these do in the pic, they will do fine.
Those roots are small. However, they look good. They are not carrot like and have some nice smaller lateral roots shooting off the side. I am sure they would have looked really nice and resembled wild roots with age.
Latt

Whitjr,

Sorry don't have anything to show for comparison.

We had a extreme hot/dry July/August and by first week in September something like 95% of our wild seng was gone. It just turned brown and died, not your normal yellowing like it does in the fall.

I had quite a few 3 leafers from wild similated plantings that were still up first week in August, but when I checked on them again first week in October there were none remaining in any of my beds. Almost all of our forrest floor low green plants expired early this year, cohosh, bainberry, maidenhair fern, etc - they just turned brown and died.

I have heard that ginseng develops next years bud in June/July and hopefully mine that expired early will be back next year. I sure hope so.

I should be able to compare some 2 year old and 1 year old rootlets next fall.

This years experience made me change my planting some too. I have planted all of my seed this fall, lower on the hill, and put the seed deeper under dirt (most 1" deep). I did plant some using my double rake and scatter method and that gets them I'd say 1/2" deep on average, but I planted the large majority of my seed this fall using the sharp shooter shovel - and got them covered good with dirt. It was slower planting, but I am sure they will do better if next summer/fall is as dry at this past one was.

I also focused my plantings this fall on areas where I could still find some maidenhair fern that survived and I expect that will help quite a bit too.

Good Luck to you on your plantings !

TNhunter

I agree with Latt. As long as the buds are good, they should do fine. I"ve never heard that they need to be a certain size, and can tell you from experience that just isn't so.

TNhunter, I believe if they make it until the middle of July, you will be fine. I've had times when I"ve gone to the woods late July or early August and pretty much everything was gone. Those make for some long trips home. But, the next spring, they were all up and looking healthier than ever. Just the nature of the beast I guess.

I had a similar drought there where these were dug. Most tops died back as a result. I stuck orange flage markers on them before the drought affected everything.

When we were digging/planting that weekend... I had only sabout 2/3 of the flags where we found the roots above. In other words, 1/3 could not be found by the flags I put in.

I think the ground I'm planting, once I get the calcium up, will do just fine. I was encouraged to see the tangent thready roots off the main body of these.

Thanks for the comments, guys!

Some of the buds look good,thats what is important in my book.
Good to see you dig up roots to see how everything is growing, wish more would do this to better understand how it grows.
These will do fine next spring, good idea /calcium.

guy

Yall, I don't know what kind of computer screw up just happened but iv not ever seen this root before and its definitely older than a year. I was tryin to post some pics from my phone and this popped up instead... Good lookin root though! Lol

Hillhopper