Nice story Billy, but you just got me jonesing even more!

Question for you guys, do you just plant the berries whole or squeez the seeds out? I've herd guys say both ways.

Northern, ONTARIO, CANADA without a formal season.

Guy

Indiana-Sep 1st

maya,

I have always just planted the whole red berry.

I try to plant them about 1/2 inch deep and then on top of the dirt I put on some good leaf mulch and then step on it to pack it in.

The Red/Berry and Pulp may be there mostly to make them attrictive to critters for eating (so they can deposit the seeds else where and do some planting for us).

Or that Berry Pulp may also help keep the seeds from drying out for a month or so until the damper winter months get here.

Just a guess on my part on that.

I would be interested in knowing if anyone has proof that it helps to squeeze the seeds out before planting. If it does I can sure change how I have been planting them this season.

TNhunter

I would say that a full 90% of the ginseng that I hunt here in east Tennessee doesn't have ripe berries by the August 15th start date. In fact, most of the berries aren't completely ripe until the first or second week in September. Green Berries will NOT grow as the seed hasn't fully matured inside the pod.

I did a web search and found a very detailed study that was done on the subject (url below to the full article).

http://www.as.wvu.edu/biology/faculty/JBMPersonalSite/2005BerryRipening.pdf

Below is a few cuts from it:

"Overall, 31% of the ginseng seeds planted in 1998 germinated 18 months after planting"

"we observed that seeds from red berries germinated at nearly 3 times the rate of seeds from green berries"

"50% of the seeds from green berries planted near that stage of development (August 26) germinated, while only 4% of seeds from green berries planted in early August germinated.

==

So - I would say "DO" plant those green berries if you find em. Even a slim chance (in favor of ginsng) is one worth taking the time for.

I have not finished reading all of the article yet but will.

TNhunter

I finished the article and below is a map/image they included that showed % of green/red berries in a small pie type chart by site studied and for the different dates studied.

Billy - looks like one of their study sites was just a bit west of you there in KY.

Looks like the Northern West VA sites were the last to have red-berries.

TNhunter

Something else I noticed in that article on page 143...

"Fruits were planted whole to simulate what harvesters are encouraged to do".

So it sounds like planting whole berries instead of extracting the seeds first - is what we should be doing.

TNhunter

I agree. Since the berries fall off the plant and are planted that way naturally, it would seem that we should plant them the same way.
I think that removing the seed from the pulp may cause the seed to dry out. The seed is not removed from the pulp in nature.
In regards to green seeds, I don't know how true it is, but I have heard that if you dig the plant and afterwards you put the stem of the plant back into the soil that the green seeds on the plant may ripen as a result. I have no way to know if that is effective since I have never observed it, but I guess it couldn't hurt. I have done this on occasion of finding a plant with both red and green berries. I romove the red ones, plant them and then reinsert the stem deep into the soil.
Who knows?