It’s hard to find ginseng after the leaves fall.
If you’re looking for more information about ginseng, or the prices forums for each year, check at the ginseng.wildozark.com blog or email me. I’ve moved most of the ginseng related information I had over to the new blog dedicated to the Wild Ozark Ginseng Habitat Nursery.
Hard to Spot
This is how ginseng looks late in the season.
They no longer have yellow and easy to spot leaves. The berries have long since fallen to the ground and are now covered with autumn leaves.
So anyone who digs now must be very good at finding the old stems. Or they’d have to know exactly where they are.
No Fresh Roots in Fall?
This is why it’s hard to find fresh roots at the end of the digging season.
Here in Arkansas, t’s legal to dig until Dec. 1. But not many people do once it becomes this difficult to find.
Sustainable Harvesting
American ginseng is an endangered plant. Responsible diggers take a sustainable approach to harvesting, and never dig all of the plants in a patch. They leave behind some of the oldest plants to continue producing berries and pass on good genetics.
Those diggers will likely snap the tops off of the plants they don’t dig, so that no one else who comes behind them in the woods will find the plants they passed.
Finding Ginseng After the Leaves Fall
The plants that managed to escape notice from over-zealous diggers early in the season can breathe a sigh of relief. Only the very experienced have any chance of finding ginseng after the leaves fall.
From time to time I’ll need to dig a few of the seedlings to fill a late order. Because I know exactly where I put them, I can find them easily enough after raking the leaves away from the ground.
Next year’s bud is already on the top of all the plants, including the small roots that will be next year’s two-prongs. If I need to transplant some of the older plants from one area to another, that’s how I’d find them, too.
But it’s only because I have a good idea of where they are to begin with that I’d have much of a chance of finding them once even the stems are on the ground mingling with the leaves.
Finding ginseng after the leaves fall is like looking for a needle in a haystack unless you know exactly where to look.