Earth & Sky

Thanks to:

Dr. Robert L. Beyfuss
Agriculture & Natural Resources Program Leader
Specialist for American Ginseng Production at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Greene County
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

American Ginseng Production in Woodlots – Agroforestry Note #14

Woodland Ginseng Production (Cornell)

Species at Risk in Canada: American Ginseng

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Webpage – American Ginseng

Ginseng growers hope that New York’s forests are enchanted Cornell University Press Release

To learn more about American ginseng woodland cultivation research at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, please visit here.

An analysis of the sustainability of American Ginseng harvesting from the wild: the problem and possible solutions, Final report to the Office of Scientific Authority of the US Fish and Wildlife Service by Dr. Daniel Gagnon, Groupe de recherche en ?cologie foresti?re Universit? du Qu?bec ? Montr?al ,10 May 1999

Producing and Marketing Wild Simulated Ginseng in Forest and Agroforestry Systems – Author: Andy Hankins; Extension Specialist, Alternative Agriculture; Virginia State University
Publication Number 354-312, Posted November 2000

Trade Environment Database (TED) webpage ““Ginseng Wisdom” “:http://www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/ginseng.htm

Author’s Notes:
Interview with Dr. Robert Beyfuss, .

E&S: How much trouble is the plant in right now, and what’s its status in the wild?

Dr. Beyfuss: American ginseng is an internationally protected plant. It falls under the auspices of a treaty called the CITES treaty, which is Convention in Threatened and Endangered Species, the same treaty that covers rhinoceros horns and ivory, and things like that. So internationally, it’s considered an endangered plant.

In New York state, the status of ginseng is that it?s considered to be a plant that is commercially exploitable, which means it is not necessarily threatened or endangered. However, there is a potential that the plant could become threatened and endangered, if it becomes over-exploited so it falls under the status of “commercially exploitable.”

There are 22 different states where wild ginseng occurs, and its status within those states varies from threatened to endangered to commercially exploitable, so it does vary tremendously. I would think that in New York state at least, the habitat for ginseng to grow is actually expanding as New York becomes more and more forested, and particularly as our forests become more mature. So I think that the potential for ginseng to survive in New York state is quite good. I think it is going to require some help from some human beings to increase its range, and to keep it thriving in the woods. I think if it does not get any help from humans, there is a chance that this plant could become perhaps threatened. I don’t anticipate it getting so exploited that it would become endangered, but it could become threatened without some human intervention.

E&S: When you talk about human intervention, do you mean replanting programs?

Dr. Beyfuss: Absolutely, I mean aggressively replanting both on state and private property.

E&S: The seeds used for replanting, does it come from wild stock or cultivated stock?

Dr. Beyfuss: That’s interesting because the ways the current laws in New York state are written, it is illegal to take ginseng berries, the fruit that contains the seed, from the woods when you?re out hunting wild ginseng. The law states that the berries must be planted within 50 feet of where you are digging or harvesting the root. However, it is not illegal to harvest the root and then take the root back, and plant it somewhere else, and then harvest the berries and do what you wish with them. There are a number of people who have been doing this for many many years, and so there are some sources of wild origin seed. That’s one approach.

There’s also been some places where we?ve really tried to establish some plantings from wild plants to start a germ bank depository, and there are also quite a few diggers who will plant seed that came from commercial gardens elsewhere, so I’d say both are being done in terms of replanting it.

My experience has been with seed that has come from elsewhere, let?s say, seed coming from Michigan or Wisconsin or Canada. Within a generation or so, the plants that result from that seed being planted in our woods are identical to wild plants that are growing in our woods. Ginseng has been commonly replanted from various regions into New York state for at least the last 300 years. So the gene pool right now is really quite mixed up between Canadian, Wisconsin, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, there’s been quite a bit of mixing over the last 300 years.

E&S: So if there’s any kind of regional variation, we may never know about it?

Dr. Beyfuss: It’s very hard to say if there is any regional variation. There’s been a couple of studies in which they?ve actually gone out and sampled wild populations of ginseng and done what is called DNA fingerprinting on them to determine indeed if these are pure population or whether they are sort of a hodge podge.

And there probably are a few populations in some remote places in the south where they’re dealing with a relatively pure gene pool in the sense that there probably hasn’t been any other genetic influence from populations other than that immediate region. But I would think that might be the exception more than the case. In most of the places where ginseng is going to be found in the wild, I think we are going to find that the deck has been shuffled, and if there has been some exchange of genetic information between different populations from different regions, it’s because this has been going on for hundreds of years.

E&S: How serious is the problem of poaching wild ginseng?

Dr. Beyfuss: The problem with poaching is quite serious, particularly in the south … in many cultures, poaching is something that is not necessarily looked down upon in a serious manner. There are some serious problems with poaching, particularly in the south, particularly in some of our national parks. I know that in the Great Smokies National Park, poaching is a serious problem down there. There, the Fish and Wildlife service and the plant protection people are going to great lengths to catch the poachers.

Poaching is a problem elsewhere too, but I don?t think it’s a serious problem in New York and the Northeast because I don’t think there are that many people who are going to be stealing ginseng off someone?s property because they can usually find it someplace else without having to resort to stealing. So I don?t think it is much of a problem in the Northeast as it is in the South, particularly in the Southeast.

E&S: Why the appeal for wild ginseng?

Dr. Beyfuss: The money is essentially the appeal. The prices for wild ginseng have been increasing substantially since … I remember when I first started digging it back in the ’70s, we would get $120 a pound then, dried, maybe $130. Last year, prices were in the neighborhood of $500 a pound, dried-weight, so there is a tremendous demand because of the high prices that are being paid on wild ginseng.

I think there are a couple of reasons why the prices are going up. One of them is reflecting somewhat the scarcity of the plant, because the U.S. harvest totals have been going down. In general if you look at the entire United States export figures, the numbers have been going down, so the supply has been reduced.

I also think that demand has increased as a lot of Asian people have become financially better off and can afford to pay higher prices. I think the Asian economic boom which kinda petered out a few years ago did result in substantially higher prices. And there was a bit of adjustment, I noticed, in the price of wild ginseng immediately following the crash of the Yen. The Asian economic crisis really did diminish the prices paid for wild ginseng substantially for a couple of years. But they seem to have rebounded.

E&S: Why is there a higher premium for wild ginseng vs. cultivated ginseng? It has the same potency right?

Dr. Beyfuss: Well, the whole question of potency is still a thing that?s not clearly understood or addressed. It is generally accepted that the active ingredients in ginseng are a class of compounds referred to as ginsenocides, and if you actually start measuring these in wild vs. cultivated roots, you find that there is no consistent pattern that emerges. I cannot make the statement that wild ginseng has more ginsenocides or higher percentage of ginsenocides than does cultivated ginseng, I cannot make that statement based on the data that I have.

However, ginseng?s quality, by the people who are using it, is not determined by the chemical activity of a class of compounds within the root. Its quality is determined by the appearance of the root, the age of the root, which is something you can determine even at a glance, and some other morphological and visual characteristics that really have nothing to do with the active ingredients.

We don’t really know why wild ginseng is commanding so much higher prices than cultivated ginseng. But we do know that the roots are very very different-looking. The appearance of the roots is substantially different, and in general, the wild roots are going to be, on average, quite a bit older than are the cultivated roots that are generally harvested at 3 to 4 years old. So I think that?s part of the reason for price.

But the people who are paying the money for ginseng want the older, wrinkled, gnarled roots. I think part of that is because of the original species, the Panax ginseng, which is virtually extinct [in the wild] in Asia. When they were finding roots these last few years, they were usually very old roots, and they were very very valuable. If we could quantify the active ingredients in saying there is 10% more, or 20% more, or 200% more of this particular ginsenocide in the wild root vs. cultivated … but based on some preliminary research we’ve done up at Cornell, I can’t make that statement.

E&S: There are different kinds of cultivated ginseng. Two of the kinds mentioned in your publication [American Ginseng Production in Woodlots] are wild-simulated and woods-cultivated ginseng. Do these produce roots resembling wild ginseng?

Dr. Beyfuss: Yes, actually wild-simulated ginseng, if it’s allowed to grow for enough years, say 10 to 15 years at least, generally will bring prices exactly the same as wild ginseng. There is really no way of telling them apart. Woods-cultivated ginseng is generally harvested after 6 to 9 years of age, and it does superficially resemble wild ginseng, the major difference being the roots are just younger. But they both do look like wild ginseng. Whereas field cultivated ginseng, which is harvested 3 to 4 years, doesn?t look either like wild-simulated or woods-cultivated, it looks very different.

E&S: Like a small carrot?

Dr. Beyfuss: Like a carrot or a parsnip, correct, as opposed to a gnarly shriveled up little root.

E&S: How difficult is it to cultivate ginseng in a woodlot?

Dr. Beyfuss: Well it?s actually fairly easy to grow if you can identify and grow it in an area which is ecologically suitable for it to grow, which probably is an area where it once grew wild. So I’ve spent a good deal of time refining what I call my visual site assessment criteria, which is something that a landowner can take into the woods, and look for certain characteristics of trees, slope, exposure, companion plants, other vegetation that’s growing on the ground. My site evaluation criteria is based on the ecology of wild ginseng, so my feeling is it’s fairly easy to grow if you can locate a site which is ecologically suitable for it.

It could be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to grow in sites that are not ecologically suited for it, you may have to resort to growing it the way they grow it in fields. They grow a lot of ginseng in what used to be alfalfa fields, which is very foreign to where the plant evolved. The only way they can do that is by relying tremendously on pesticides, whereas in the two wild-simulated situations, pesticides would not be an issue, they would not be needed. But in a cultivated, even a woods-cultivated situation, particularly if its an intensive woods-cultivated situation, there is tremendous reliance upon pesticides.

E&S: What kinds of problems do these plants have?

Dr. Beyfuss: The major problems are fungal diseases, some of which cause the roots to rot. There is a particular fungus called Phytophphora cactorum which causes serious root rot to ginseng. It can virtually eat up the whole root in a matter of days. That causes a root rot that completely kills the root and makes it go away, and also leaves infectious spores in the soil, and these infectious spores preclude you from ever growing ginseng ever again in that area as far as we know. So that?s the major disease that affects ginseng.

The other major fungal disease we call blight. Blight will cause the top of the ginseng plants to develop lesions, and to die off prematurely. It does not necessarily affect the root but several years of the tops being killed back may cause the roots to eventually die. There are probably maybe 2 or 3 other diseases that are caused by fungi also. That is why many of these people are using pesticides. It’s almost entirely fungus diseases that they’re spraying for.

E&S: And they tend to occur in areas where ginseng is cultivated intensively?

Dr. Beyfuss: Absolutely, yes. When they do field cultivation of ginseng, they grow it for 3 years in the field. And it costs a lot of money to put up a structure for growing ginseng in the field because they have to put up the shade cloth, the poles, and the cables, and all this other stuff and then, instead of growing another [ginseng] crop there, they have to tear it all down and go someplace else. They never grow it in the same place ever, it just does not work, probably because it leaves some sort of infectious spores in the soil. But even if they fumigate these spots, they still have a hard time growing it.

E&S: It sounds like a very intensive activity, growing ginseng.

Dr. Beyfuss: Yes, well, in New York the land area or the changing land use is creating more habitat for ginseng. It’s just a matter of getting people to start replanting it. And I think that?s going to be the future. I think people, not only by replanting it in the wild, but also by growing it in suitable places, will go a long way towards insuring the survival of the species. I don?t think it’s going to go away.

E&S: How abundant did it use to be, did it ever coat the forest understory?

Dr. Beyfuss: Pretty much. At one time, ginseng was a very common understory plant in certain areas, and literally, you could hardly walk without stepping on them in certain places, at one time. It was that common.

But it was heavily harvested, I mean the plant was not even remotely protected until, I believe, 1977 or 1978. So it was ruthlessly harvested without any regard for replanting or conservation, particularly during the latter part of the 19th century when the woodlands were all being cut down anyway, so you might as well just harvest the ginseng.

People don’t realize that at one time, most of New York state was forest. Now we?re 62% forested in New York state. At the turn of the century, we were probably less than 20% forested. So as fields were being used for pasture, the woods were being cut down for timber or whatever, the ginseng was most assuredly heavily harvested. The fact that it remains is only because people have been replanting it all these years in the right places, and I think that?s… and it?s also an interesting plant from a biological perspective, and there are some other reasons why it’s not extinct now too. It certainly got hammered in the latter part of the 19th century, in particular.

E&S: The primary market for ginseng is the Far East?

Dr. Beyfuss: Yes. I would say that 90% of all the ginseng that is sold ends up going to Hong Kong, and from Hong Kong, it is distributed among the Pacific Rim countries, and some of it gets into China, but it’s very very expensive, so the average person in mainland China probably cannot afford ginseng … I mean, there is probably cultivated ginseng they might be able to afford.

There is also a big tariff on it too, when it comes in to Hong Kong, so it is prohibitively expensive. I would say that the majority of the wild ginseng, which is the most highest priced, ends up in Asian communities in the Pacific Rim – Malaysia, Singapore, places like that. It’s funny. Some of it goes to Hong Kong, and ends up back in Chinatown, in New York City!

E&S: A lot of the ginseng that we buy in stores and pharmacies, is that American ginseng?

Dr. Beyfuss: I don’t know if you can buy … I think the only place you can buy wild American ginseng, or wild-simulated American ginseng, would be in Chinatown in New York. I can’t think of anyplace else where you can buy it. Your average pharmacy will probably have between 10 to 15 different ginseng products, almost all of which contains Asian ginseng, which is widely cultivated in China and Korea, or extracts of Asian ginseng. Or something that is not even a true ginseng, what you’ll see as Russian ginseng or Siberian ginseng.

Commonly, if you walk into a health food store, or you walk into a pharmacy, and say “I’d like to buy some ginseng,” they?d probably show you many different products and some of them are going to contain what’s known as Siberian ginseng which is a shrub that’s not even in the same genus as ginseng, and it’s not even related, but somehow got the name of ginseng. I don’t know if you can buy American ginseng in a healthy food store, you can buy it in New York City in Chinatown but I don’t know if you can buy it in a health food store anyplace other than Manhattan.

E&S: But do these so-called ginseng products have the same medicinal value or is it a scam?
Dr. Beyfuss: It’s hard to say. The last survey that was done … the health food industry, the dietary supplement industry, people like Celestial Seasonings … the last survey that they did, I believe, found that somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of all the products that were being sold as ginseng-containing products in fact contained no ginseng whatsoever. So there is widespread adulteration, widespread fraud, for lack of a better word, and it’s kinda “let the buyer beware.” Now products that come from Korea are certified, there?s a little stamp that goes on them, basically because Korean production of ginseng is tightly regulated by the government, so they come with a certification stamp. However I?ve been told that the stamp is very easy to counterfeit. And so, quite often, even things that may have this Korean stamp on it, might in fact be counterfeit. So the buyer really needs to beware. American ginseng just does not seem to exist in the common marketplace around here.

E&S: It’s interesting that Asian ginseng is so popular here, don’t they use it in the Far East as well?
Dr. Beyfuss: Yes, they do. It?s also a very important agricultural export for Korea, probably Korea’s number one agricultural export. It really does bring huge amounts of capital into their country. So South Korea exports an awful lot of Asian ginseng, and yes, they do consume a great deal too. I think on a per capita basis, the Koreans probably consume ginseng on the highest per capita. So yes, they are using a lot of Asian ginseng as well as American ginseng. The plants are prescribed differently, in Chinese Traditional Medicine. Asian ginseng is considered more of a stimulant, it would be prescribed for people who need to be rejuvenated or energized. Whereas American ginseng is more calming or tranquilizing, prescribed for people who need to calm down. So the plants have very different pharmacological properties according to Chinese Traditional Medicine.

E&S: But both plants are very closely related? Dr. Beyfuss: Yes. They look almost exactly the same. If I showed you a root of Panax ginseng, Asian ginseng, and showed you a root of Panax quinquefolium, American ginseng, you?d say, oh! they look the same to me. They do. The plants look the same. The roots looks the same. But they are prescribed differently. They taste a little bit different too.

E&S: When they are exported to Hong Kong, are they generally exported dried?
Dr. Beyfuss: Yes. Almost always dried. Generally, they are packed into these large cardboard drums which contain several hundred pounds of dried root, and that?s the general way it is exported. And they’re, of course, inspected by the CITES people and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

E&S: Well, is there anything you want to add about ginseng in general? Dr. Beyfuss: Well, I think that ginseng cultivation offers potential for environmentally friendly income generation, from woodlands that might not be able to do anything else profitable, so I think it’s a very very friendly crop to grow in the right area, you can grow it without chemicals, without pesticides, if you can mimic its wild state, and I certainly do encourage landowners to investigate ginseng cultivation on their woodlands, if at all possible.

E&S: Are there programs in some state wildlife agencies to encourage it?

Dr. Beyfuss: Yes, it kinda varies from state ot state because ginseng regulation is handled by different agencies in different states. In New York state, ginseng regulation is handled by the Department of Environmental Conservation and in the state of Kentucky, ginseng regulation and harvest is controlled by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. So it varies from state to state. In New York state, since it is with the Department of Environmental Conservation, the emphasis is more with protection and conservation as opposed to its economic development and exploitation in marketing. Personally, I would rather see the ginseng program controlled by the Department of Agriculture and Markets because, then, I think it would get a bit more attention as a potential agricultural commodity, as opposed to some rare and mysterious plant that you just have to preserve. It is a rare and mysterious plant that you have to preserve, but it is also something that can be cultivated, and can provide income for our rural folks.