Hello! If you dig ginseng currently, or used to / grew up digging ginseng, I'd love to hear your stories.

I am currently writing a book and would love to potentially include these stories in the writing. It is about ginseng's hunting and cultivation, as well as its cultural and botanical history.

Writing from my own experiences with the plant, I'm coming from a plant monitoring perspective, and I've talked with a few regulatory authorities, but I'd really like to highlight the deeper personal stories and connections that capture the experience of digging for seng and how the plant has influenced lifestyle.

Even if you don't have any stories that come to mind, I'd love to get your take on a few discussion points. Happy to discuss here or via private message - whichever is most preferred. Thanks!

It feels so formal without a good photo, so a pic from last year attached:

I hunted Ginseng with my brother-in-law when I was young but got away from it for a few years. Now I am getting into cultivating Ginseng in a wood grown environment. This past fall I planted three test plots using different methods that I saw online. The first was to spread seed in a good area right as the leaves were falling, this method produced very low seed germination. The second method was to rake leaves away spread seed and cover with leaf litter. This method produced ok results. The last method I used was to rake leaf litter back in a 1-foot-wide strip about 12 feet long them loosen the soil slightly with a garden weasel tool, spread seed and then lightly rake them into soil and walk over them to compress soil then recover with leaf litter. I did about twelve rows like this and had nearly 100 percent germination. I went to my woods Sunday morning and counted over 300 1 prongs in this patch. I will transplant some of them next fall to thin the bed out when I plant several more beds in this same area.

We used to a lot. Didn't doig so much for the money, but the enjoyment of being in the woods. I found if you always leave some large plants along the way, and don't dig the small stuff, you could redig an area around every 8-10 years. And get just as much if not more from the last time. There is one cove that I know between Dad and I, it has successfully been dug 6-7 times over 60 years. Dad has a receipt from his grandfather selling his seng in the early 1900's. It was over $100 worth.

I’ve hunted ginseng since I was 9… I turn 53 this November.
My first hunting trip with my dad is one I’ll never forget.
I had been walking through the timber with my dad and was getting frustrated because I just couldn’t find any,,, my told told me to be paitient,,, train my eyes,,, so ,,, after a bit I walked around, started jumping with excitement,,, I found some!! I yelled for my dad to come,,,
I was very discouraged when my dad had informed me that what I had found was a patch of poison ivy.
It was later when dad found another nice few plants, he handed me the top, and said use this as your guide,,, compare it with the other plants.. you’re going to find some.
I took my dad advice and started walking the bottom of the ridge,, when I saw it,,, a big ol plant with a berry cluster as big as a golf ball.
I started comparing the top that my dad gave me,, with the one right there before me,, 5 leaves looked like the five leaves in my hand…
I started looking around and saw another, then another and another!!!
I yelled out for dad and he came down the ridge and told me that I did indeed find ginseng and a very nice patch as well.
We stayed there digging until it was almost too dark to find our way out.



I’ll never know if my dad already knew that patch was there or not…. But it set my foot on solid ground,,,, I can spot it a long way off,,, and can even notice that ginseng has an almost different kind of green than most other plants.

I kinda think it’s kinda like a stop light,,, when you see the yellow,,, you slow down and take your time,,, when you see the red,,, which is berries,,, you stop