How to Clean and Dry Wild Ginseng Roots

After I get home with my ginseng roots, I like to soak them in water for a bit. Then I fill the sink with water and take an old soft toothbrush and gently brush the dirt off the roots. You do not want to use a stiff brush or scrub hard or you'll end up breaking the skin covering the root.

Now you may hear some people who disagree with this and say that you should just rinse the dirt off under running water or to just soak them or whatever. They may also say that it is good to leave dirt around the rings as it looks better and adds value. All I can say is that I guess it depends on what your dealer prefers. I cleaned my roots more than adequately a few times, just soaking and rinsing them and rubbing off any obvious dirt that was left with my fingers and rinsing them again. When the roots dry they shrink in size considerably and thus look dirtier even though they looked really clean before. My particular dealer (who has been in business for a very long time and pays a better price than the dozens of other dealers I have contacted) complained about the amount of dirt on them, but still paid me full price. That's why I started using the soft toothbrush. It's still fairly quick and does a better job and my ginseng dealer likes the end result better.

After you get your ginseng roots cleaned, the next step is getting them dried out. First the don'ts. Do not put them in an oven or microwave or on top of a wood stove, etc. Do not set them out in the sunlight. Drying them fast or in the sun discolors them and the buyers do not like that.
If you have a screen or tray with a screen bottom that is perfect. If not you can use a tray, a shallow box, paper plates, a baking sheet, etc. and line it with paper towels. Place your roots on whatever you use in a single layer and spaced out enough that they aren't touching. Now you need a place to set them. Somewhere that stays 85-90 degrees with low humidity would be ideal. Places like this would include attics, storage buildings, or maybe your garage. Make sure mice or other rodents can't get to your ginseng. Drying will take probably at least 2 and maybe 3 weeks depending on the conditions, the size of the roots,etc. When it is dry it should break clean with a snap rather than bend.

In my next post we will discuss selling your roots.

How to Find and Dig Wild American Ginseng

The first thing you need to know is what you are looking for. Here are a few pictures of wild American ginseng plants in various stages of growth.



These photos are fairly typical of late July, late August, and late September where I live in Kentucky. Notice the leaf pattern, shape, size, edges. You will overlook many plants if you can't identify it by the leaves alone. People that just look for red berries or wait for it to turn yellow will not find as much.

First you need to find out when ginseng season starts in your state. In Kentucky it is August 15th. Next you need a place to go, something to dig the roots with, and something to put them in (any kind of sack or bag is fine really). Some people just like to use a flathead screwdriver. Some have "sang hoes" that they made themselves. I generally use one of the following.



Now to find some woods. If you don't have any suitable woods on your land or a friend, neighbor, or family member do not fret. You can get permits for most National Parks. You can also just simply ask someone for permission. Some will say no and some will say go ahead. Ideally the kind of woods we are looking for would be hardwood stands of poplar, maple, walnut, hickory and beech with around 70-80% shade. North-facing and East-facing slopes are best. The ground should be moist but well-drained. Now if it happens to be a dry year the ground may be dry nearly everywhere so if the other conditions are met, it still may be a good place.

Once you are in the woods, one way to tell if you are in a suitable spot is if you see some of the following wild plants: cohosh, goldenseal, trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit. You can find pictures of these by searching google images.

Just make sure you only harvest mature ginsing plants (three and four prongs) and plant the red berries back in the ground if they haven't fell off yet. When you dig a plant, first rake the leaves and debris away from it so you can see where the stalk enters the ground. Gently dig down around the stalk very carefully until you see the root. Usually you can see which way it is growing and then dig it up easier. If you are using a hoe type tool though you need to start digging away from the stalk and gently make your way back to the root and under it. If you happen to unearth a root that is quite small (say the size of a AAA battery for reference) or still young just plant it back. It should be 5 years or older before harvesting. You can count the bud scars to determine the age of the root. See below.



This should be enough to get you started. I'll put up an article tomorrow about what to do with your wild ginseng roots when you get home.

Click Here to see the best guide on Wild Ginseng.

Sold My Ginseng Roots

I sold all of my ginseng today. I only had 1 pound and 1 ounce dry but I got $800 a pound so I'm quite happy with that. I spent about 30-35 hours in the woods this year so $20-25/hour isn't too bad. I also sold the 18 green roots since they paying 1/3 price for green and the price was so high.

The ginseng dealer I was talking to said they only had about a third of the amount of roots they would normally have by this time. People were finding a lot less and it was drying up in the woods much faster.

Well, you might think this is the end of this blog until ginseng season comes back in next year but I intend to try to keep updating it about once a month or so. I'll be writing some articles on different topics such as finding ginseng, best places to hunt for it, growing ginseng, ginseng seeds, etc. so come back every so often. I'll also discuss any ginseng news I hear.

Got Lucky Today

I went today and found another 18 ginseng roots. I say roots because I only found maybe 9 tops and only a couple of those were still standing and had yellow leaves. It was on a steep but very short hillside covered with fallen leaves. After I spotted the two standing ginseng plants I looked very, very hard and managed to pick out the golden brown, shriveled leaves of a few more after several minutes. When I began digging them I found several other dormant roots.

The going price is over $700 a pound now.

Wild American Ginseng Prices Skyrocketing

Wow! The price dealers are paying is going up rapidly. Last year I received $365 a pound. This year it is already over $600 and climbing fast. Still waiting for some of my roots to completely dry but I think I'm going to go back out and try to find a little more at these prices.

Happy Hunting!

Ginseng Season over for me

I guess I'm done digging for the year. My best area yielded a decent amount of roots but overall I didn't do so well. I have a little over a pound of dry roots.

A combination of the late April frost and the very dry summer and fall has made the ginseng a little more scarce this year and it disappeared faster as well. The upside of this is that it appears the price is going up sharply.

Biggest Root of 2007 so far....

Well this is the biggest ginseng root I've found so far this year. Still hoping to do better though. This root is also completely dried in this picture. I found it 3 or 4 weeks ago. It weighs 1 oz. dry.



Happy digging.

Beautiful Day in the Woods

Well today seemed like the first real day of Fall even if it is several days early. It was 60-65 degrees during the 4 or 5 hours I spent in the woods. As far as finding ginseng it was a rather uneventful day. Dug up maybe a dozen roots and spotted a couple dozen more smaller ones. A lot of the area just wasn't that suitable. A couple that I found were 10+ years old but had a very skinny neck and not a very sizable root for their age. But it was still a gorgeous day to be in the woods and it was nice to never break a sweat because of the cooler temperatures.

I took my camera today but didn't see anything worth taking a picture of to be honest. I do have one root I dug a couple of weeks ago I'll take a pic of and put up maybe tonight. It's the biggest one I've found so far this year.

Happy digging.

Man Finds Monster Ginseng Root

Well a few days ago it was reported that a man in Maryland found a whopping 1 pound ginseng root (green). It is said to be over 100 years old. Truly an amazing rare find in this era. They didn't say in the article how many prongs the plant had. I'm assuming a 4-prong since the guy didn't mention it.

Here's a link to the article.

Man Finds 1 Pound Ginseng Root

Happy digging.

Click Here to see the best guide on Wild Ginseng.

Recent Ginseng Root Pics

I'm adding another pic today. These are some nice roots I found recently.
I took the photo about 3 days after I found them except for the root at the top, which had already been drying for 10 days before the photo. So it has lost quite a bit of its size already.

The top (stalk,leaves,etc.) on that particular root was actually all brown and dried up. The stalk, all four prongs, and all the leaves were still there. We had an abnormally late freeze this past spring after a warm spell. It killed most all of the buds and flowers on trees. Apparently, this ginseng plant had popped up fairly early and the freeze got it. I found it in the same grassy (weedy?) area in the woods that I described in my last post. There was also a dead stalk from last year beside this years top so I missed it last year somehow.

I counted the bud scars on the two roots at the lower left and both were right at 20+ years. Not nearly the oldest I've found but not bad. Oh, the object in the center is a quarter.

Here is the photo. Click on it for a slightly larger image.



Happy digging.

Ginseng Pictures 2006

Had to mow the yard today when I got off work so I didn't have time to go digging. Probably won't get to go again until Saturday when I'll spend half the day in the woods.

Anyway here is a picture of most of the ginseng I dug last year after it was dried. The biggest root (highlighted) was a lucky find. It was growing in an area that some kind of woodland grass was growing in. The grass was thick and over knee high. If it wasn't for the large cluster of red berries I would have walked right by it. All of the leaves and most of the prongs were missing (probably eaten by a deer).




More pics to come soon.

Happy Digging.

Welcome to the Ginseng Hunter Blog

Hello and welcome to my blog. I wanted to start a blog about something I have a lot of interest in, so this is it. I will post trip reports about my days hunting ginseng this season, upload some pictures from this year and last, and maybe post some stories I have heard or tell about how I got started (addicted to) 'sang hunting.
I want to keep most of my personal details personal. With that said, I live in central Kentucky and will simply go by GinsengHunter. Following is some information on Kentucky ginseng.

"The wild ginseng trade in Kentucky is a $5 to $8 million industry. Kentucky is the largest supplier of wild ginseng in the United States, averaging approximately 16 percent of the national harvest annually. The average wholesale value of wild ginseng to a root digger varies between $300 and $500 per pound."

The state of Kentucky almost lost its right to export ginseng this year though, after an undercover operation found that many if not most of the licensed dealers were buying the valuable root out of season. You can read more about it here if you like Kentucky faces ginseng export ban

I'll post some photos in a day or two of the roots I dug last season.
Until then,
Happy Hunting