This month National Geographic has a feature on ginseng emphasizing violence and crime. While theft is an important challenge, the plant faces many other challenges as well. I have written a “top twenty” list explaining 20 of my favorite ginseng factoids. Please read my story on medium here.
September 1 is the beginning of ginseng season on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau. Towards the end of the summer the plant has produced seeds which fall of the stem, and some, two years latter become new ginseng plants. Wild American Ginseng is a threatened species, and is protected by the United Nations CITES treaty. Because of…
A new approach to cultivating and growing ginseng could expand opportunities for farmers and landowners while discouraging poachers. The goal is to cultivate and grow new plants in Appalachian forest. Doing so can create additional value—Wild American Ginseng being a valuable botanical and an endangered plant. It makes sense to take advantage of Appalachian agriculture…
Ginseng has quite the reputation. Did you know that Rasputin used ginseng to treat the hemophilia of the last Czar of Russia’s son? Or that ginseng’s scientific name Panax means all-healing in Greek? Now researchers are looking at ginseng to treat COPD and boost cancer-treatment drugs. Wisconsin farmers who cultivate the plant are hopeful that…
Dr. Iris Gao has moved from mainland China to Middle State Tennessee University in order to study Wild American ginseng. It just so happens that we have a lot of the root at Coal Creek farm in Eastern Tennessee. Dr. Gao visited recently with her colleague Dr. Elliot Altman (aka the hemp doctor) and Andrea Bishop, who…
The last Male Northern White Rhino died yesterday. Like rhinos, wild American Ginseng is protected by CITES (convention on international trade in endangered species). Male White Rhinos are now extinct. Is Ginseng next? Wild American Ginseng is the last truly wild root on the planet. It is considered an indicator species for the health of…