TOPIC: Planting ginseng seed

Guy,
I know cultivated Root goes for $15 to $20 per pound. However I had no idea that you could buy Cultivated Stratified Ginseng Seed at $20 per pound. Where can I buy some at that price?
Thanks,
Latt

Yea no kiddin. I would take a bunch at that price myself. Im sure if you live where shade grown seng growers are abundant it would probably be cheaper.

Last year the dealer we sold to - Glenn Bradey over in Pulaski TN had stratified seed for 28.00/lb.

I thought about buying some after we sold but did not and then wished I had, just to get started at it. I really did not know all I needed to know at that point but started researching and ended up here on this forum from doing web searches.

I checked with him back in Mid August and he thought he would have seed for sale this year and told me a price of 30.00/lb.

I asked and he said it was from a artificial shade/cultivated grower in Wisconsin.

At that price I was going to buy a few pounds and try it out.

But later in early October when I checked back with him he said he could not get the seed this year, because his supplier was affected by the weather problems that affected many of the Wisconsin growers.

Heck at 30.00/lb I was going to try broadcasting a few pounds on top of the leaves, Mid October, just before heavy rain and leaf fall - just to see what kind of success I might have that way.

In Scotts book he mentions a grower that does that and reports 65% germinatoin rate. You have to do it at just the right time - at that point when leaves are ready to fall heavy and just before a heavy rain which makes them really carpet the forest floor.

If you could get a pound (say 7000 seeds) for 30.00 and broad cast and got 65% germination - that is 4550 seedlings for 30.00.

Per seedling price of 0.00659

It would probably take you 5 minutes or less, walking at a good pace with a hand crank seed broadcaster to plant a pound.

Not willing to try that with seed I am paying 85-140.00/lb for though.

TNhunter

I like your style TN. At $30 bucks a pound I would give em a big heave ho and let mother take over.lol
Latt

That's \"Mother nature take over\". Not only am I a bad speller I sometimes forget to insert words too. lol
Latt

We're talkin seed here not root eh.

There is a large community of shade growers in the London Ontario area and out in BC, every season it can be found in their local newspapers. They will ship to the States I beleive.
You could try the Wisconson's shade growers community papers or any other large community of growers.
Just a warning though field growers treat their seed with some nasty chemicals and stratifie above ground in a climate and moisture controled enviroment, so they look different than wild sim. seed. They are a light biege colour all over with little variation, sort of a sick guys colour, and smell like a bag of chemicals. They have one or two different grades in size. Why don't you guys go visit a few farms, you will learn alot and see the reason why wild simulated seed jusifiably costs more.

Try to broad cast green seed, that's Mother Natures way eh.

lol; oh yeh don't forget them 165% larger root variant seeds you can harvest if ya throw in some wild seed.

guy

Guy thanks for the info.
Hillhopper and I were talking about selling our Wild Simulated Seed from our Wild Simulated plants we have growing some day at the higher rates when you stated you could get Stratified seed at $15 to $20 per pound. I knew you had thought we were talking about cultivated so I just let it go. I think TNhunter was talking about broadcasting Stratified seed not cultivated green seed. I have never bought shade grown field cultivated stratified seed. I buy Woods Grown which can be either Wild Simulated or Woods Cultivated. I would rather it all be seed from Wild Simulated but I know from talking to seed suppliers it is often woods cultivated but still better than shade grown field cultivated. I have never bought from anyone that is selling shade grown field cultivated. I am willing to pay the higher price. I visited a Wild Simulated and Woods cultivated farm in MD this fall and it was a great experience. His farm is amazing and he is all over the internet and is very respected in the Ginseng community. No need for me to go to Wisc. to visit a shade grower eh.

Latt,

I have never bought seed from Larry Harding but Im sure he has good seed. I started out buying from Dennis at Ozark Mountain Ginseng and then switched to buying from Scott Persons. I think all 3 of these supliers offer about the same quality of seeds. To me it is worth the extra money for woods grown seed. Most of these other seed dealers on line are selling artificial shade seed that they buy from artificial shade gardens and resell for a profit.

I have planted artificial shade seeds, but away from my other plantings.I have had just as good germination with these as the woodsgrown seed. Now Im just waiting to see if there are disease problems with these in the future.

Lenno

I have bought seed late in the year and on two different occasions these \"reputable\" dealers told me that after a certain date they would have another shipment of seed in. Im beginning to wonder how much shade grown seed has been planted under the assumption it was woods grown. Who really knows where it comes from if they buy and then resell