American Ginseng

June 26th, 2026

This week’s show features one of America’s most valuable plants: Ginseng: a story of mystery, myth, mayhem, murder and money!  (And, of course, how to legally grow it) Plus: on this week’s full audio of the show: A tribute to the tasty wild fruits all around us, a warning about one of Nature’s most dangerous plants, which happens to have been planted intentionally all over Central Park and more…

Q. Jim, who “lives in southern Missouri, where the wild ginseng plant thrives” writes: “I understand that wild ginseng has been over harvested, and our state has been taking efforts to protect it; that’s a good thing.

“However, I have some acreage with a forested portion facing east with hardwoods and cedars and would like to plant some ginseng in accordance with Missouri State regulations to help increase the population of this interesting plant. And also for my own use.

I have heard that it takes two seasons before a seed will sprout. What can you tell me about choosing and preparing an ideal site and caring for wild Ginseng?

A. It sounds like you have a good spot for growing the famed adaptogen. American ginseng NEEDS to grow in heavily wooded forests that provide 70 to 80 percent shade and experience frost every winter.

• Sprouting time: From the website American Ginseng dot org—a site I urge you to visit: Start with stratified seed. Fresh ginseng seed is dormant and usually needs about 18 months of cold, moist conditions before it will sprout. Reputable seed suppliers sell pre stratified seed that is ready to germinate after one more winter.

• And you also need five buckets of patience, as it will be seven to ten years before you can harvest a good sized root. {quote} “Growing American ginseng is romantic in idea and stubborn in practice. The plant wants deep shade, cool roots, and patience measured in years.”

• American ginseng is best grown in mature hardwood forests, not open areas. Ideal sites are north or east facing slopes under maples, oaks, or tulip poplars. The soil should be loose, rich in leaf mould, and well drained. Heavy, wet clay is a fast way to lose seeds. If a piece of woodland bakes in full sun, floods after rain, or never sees frost, it is not a ginseng patch. No amount of effort will change that.

To prepare your planting area, rake aside heavy leaf litter while leaving a thin organic layer. Lightly loosen the top few centimeters of soil; do not till!

Plant the seeds 1.5–2 cm deep, scattered at roughly 40–60 seeds per square meter. If the seeds are planted too close together, disease can race through the bed. After sowing, cover seeds with fine soil and then a fresh layer of leaves. Once that is done, your main job is patience and periodic checking, not constant disturbance. A good ginseng patch should look like slightly tidied forest, not like a manicured garden bed.”

Now come the warnings: Five reasons why so many small patches fail ⚠️

1. Poor site choice: too much sun, wrong trees, heavy wet soil, or no real winter.

2. Questionable seed: un stratified seed, old seed, or seed collected without care for disease.

3. Overcrowding: planting too many seeds in a small area.

4. No protection from theft: young ginseng patches near trails are easy targets for diggers.

5. Ignoring local laws: some regions regulate planting, harvesting, and selling.

“For personal use, a small “woods grown” patch is enough: you tuck ginseng into spots where it looks like it belongs and let the forest do most of the work. The plant will not reward impatience. Growing American ginseng is less a crop and more a long conversation with a piece of forest. Enter it for the long term, or not at all.

“But if you give it the right conditions and a long enough runway, it can turn a quiet corner of woodland into a living savings account made of roots rather than numbers on a screen.

Now to address your specific state requirements. “While ginseng is scattered across many Missouri counties, wild populations have declined due to over-harvesting and habitat fragmentation. (biologyinsights.com). The plant is slow-growing and highly valued for its medicinal root, which has led to careful monitoring and regulation by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC).

Harvesting ginseng in Missouri is restricted to private lands with the landowner’s permission; it is prohibited on most state and federal lands. (MO.gov)The harvest season runs from September 1 to December 31, allowing seeds to ripen before collection. (biologyinsights.com). Only mature plants with three or more prongs may be harvested, and the entire stalk and leaves must remain attached to the root until it reaches the harvester’s home or business (howellcountynews.com). Harvesters must also replant seeds within 100 feet of the parent plant to support sustainability (howellcountynews.com). Missouri residents need a $20 Ginseng Harvester Permit.

And now the Dangers, as retold in a story from April of last year and titled “The True Story of Appalachia’s Deadly Ginseng Wars”

This is a long story and I’m going to condense the heck out of it and try to just highlight the basics.

“Roy Combs never locked his doors. Not his truck, not his toolshed, certainly not the old cedar chest where he kept his dried ginseng roots wrapped in newspaper. In the holler where he’d lived all his 58 years, everyone knew Roy. And everyone knew better than to touch another man’s sang.

That changed the fall the outsiders came.

They arrived in late September 2012—three men in a dented Ford pickup with Tennessee plates. At first, they just asked about good digging spots. But by October, whispers spread through the county: they’d been seen on protected land in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Then private property. Then Roy’s family tract.

“Roy confronted them near the old mining road on October 11. His brother Asa would later tell investigators Roy came home shaking. “They showed me a pistol,” Roy said. “Told me these hills don’t belong to nobody no more.”

The next morning, Roy went out digging alone.

In most places, this would be a straightforward murder investigation. But in Appalachian Kentucky, where ginseng digging follows its own unwritten rules, Sheriff’s deputies faced a wall of silence.

“People here have been digging sang since before this was America,” explained retired game warden Carl Ledford. “There’s codes. You don’t take small roots. You replant the berries. And you sure as hell don’t steal another man’s patch.”

The Tennessee men disappeared the day after Roy’s body was found. Their abandoned truck turned up near the Virginia border, the bed loaded with nearly 40 pounds of freshly dug ginseng—enough to fetch $20,000 in the right markets. The keys were still in the ignition. Kentucky justice.

Ginseng has fueled Appalachian economies since the 1700s, when traders first discovered Chinese merchants would pay a fortune for the gnarly, human-shaped American roots and George Washington told Daniel Boone to bring as much ginseng as he could to help support the American Revoloution. Today, with wild American ginseng selling for 500 to $1,000 per dried pound in Asian markets, the pressure on remaining patches has turned deadly.

“These aren’t just plants,” explained University of Kentucky ethnobotanist Dr. Marybeth Collins. “For many families, this is the difference between keeping the lights on or not. When outsiders come in and strip an area clean, they’re not just taking roots—they’re stealing someone’s winter heat money.”

At the head of the holler, where the spring runs clear, a simple wooden cross stands between two young poplars. There’s no name, just three words carved into the wood: Ginseng don’t forget.

About This Story: To quote the author Tim Carmichael: “This account is based on true events documented in Kentucky court records, interviews with law enforcement, and Appalachian oral histories.

Now the reason why the violence has returned in recent years: American ginseng’s price per pound, aka the Botanical Gold Rush: The mind-blowing economics and explosive street value of premium Appalachian roots in 2026:

From the American Ginseng Team at americanginseng.org:

“The ginseng market has multiple tiers, and lumping them together gives a misleading picture. Wild American ginseng—legally harvested, dried, with good root shape—commands the highest premiums. Cultivated ginseng, which accounts for the vast majority of commercial supply, trades at a fraction of wild prices. Woods-grown (simulated wild) falls somewhere in between. As of 2026, U.S. retail prices range from about $49 to over $1,074 per pound depending on grade and source. Average dried wild American ginseng sells for $500–$1,200 per pound. Exceptional aged roots with human-like shapes have fetched over $50,000 per pound at auction.

What Drives the Price?

• Wild roots are scarcer, slower-growing, and considered more potent. Cultivated ginseng (field-grown in shade structures) costs $50–$250 per pound—affordable but less prized in Asian export markets.

Older roots contain higher concentrations of ginsenoside (the most active ingredient) and have the branching, gnarled shapes that buyers in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan pay premium prices for. Young roots fetch bottom-dollar prices and deplete future harvests.

Properly dried roots (under 10% moisture) weigh less but last longer and mold less. Green (fresh) ginseng sells around $160 per pound—significantly cheaper than dried because of the water weight. Do not stored dried roots in plastic bags. They trap moisture, invite mold, and destroy value. Use paper or burlap in a cool, dry place.

• The majority of American ginseng is exported. Understanding how to identify high-value plants starts with knowing what you're looking at—see American Ginseng Plant Identification.

Before selling sang, make sure you have a CITES export permit. Selling wild American ginseng across state lines or internationally without documentation is a federal offense. From Wiki: “CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a global multilateral treaty aimed at ensuring that the international trade of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. It manages this through a stringent, legally binding permit system involving 185 participating nations. [1] The US Fish and wildlife service is your contact in the states.

The purported health benefits of ginseng would require more space than I got time. I highly recommend noted herbalist David Winston’s book: “Adaptogens; herbs for strength, stamina and stress relief” [Healing Arts Press; Rochester Vermont]. I found used copies for sale at reasonable prices at several sites online. Personal note: There must be something here, as David turned 99 this year.

American Ginseng dot org adds “Have fun researching the topic, maybe beginning with the articles American Ginseng and Diabetes and American Ginseng and Brain Fog. We’ll provide click thrus on these in the written version at the Gardens Alive/Gurney’s You Bet Your Garden site.