A panacea for the ages

There is an inescapable mystique associated with ginseng. It has been an almost mythological part of Chinese medicine for over 5,000 years.

Panax ginseng is the Asian species. Panax is Latin for panacea, or cure-all, while ginseng, loosely translated from the Chinese, means man-root or man-essence. The Chinese revere ginseng as an overall elixir and tout its qualities as an aphrodisiac.

The Cherokee also refer to ginseng as “little man” — Yunwi Usdiga — and traditional gathering was ritualistic. When hunting ginseng, the Cherokee would pass the first three plants, then take the fourth. A medicine person would offer a prayer to the plant spirit and a bead would be left in the hole where the plant was dug. The ritual was observed for the first plant only.

While the plant does contain a group of unique chemicals known as ginsenosides, a recent study conducted by British alternative medicine expert Dr. Edzard Ernst found no special medicinal powers.

“Well-conducted clinical trials do not support the efficacy of ginseng to treat any condition,” wrote Dr. Ernst. Because ginseng has not been tested by the Food and Drug Administration, it is illegal to market it for medical purposes. Instead, it is marketed as a health food or a supplement.

Some ginseng was gathered by white pioneers for medicinal purposes, but the main attraction for early settlers and most of today’s “sang” hunters is the price it brings. American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) was first documented in North America in Canada in the early 1700s. The first discovery in 1704 was attributed to Michael Sarrasin, the King’s physician to Canada. It was rediscovered by a Jesuit priest in 1716 near Montreal. Soon afterwards, a robust export of Canadian ginseng to China was established.

The “green-gold” rush quickly spread to the lower colonies, and the collection of ginseng followed explorers and settlers across the continent. American ginseng occurs from Canada, south to Georgia, Arkansas and Louisiana and west to Iowa and Wisconsin. From the 1800s to the mid-1900s, the ginseng trade experienced many ups and downs. From the 1960s to present, the ginseng trade has shown steady growth.

A growing business

In North Carolina, the harvesting of ginseng is governed by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 2001, wild or wild-simulated (grown in a woodland setting) ginseng in North Carolina must be five years of age or older to be legally harvested.

For harvesters, this means they are looking for three-pronged plants. Prongs are leaf stems. According to a 1982 American Journal of Botany article, “Our data show that on an average a one-pronged plant will be 4.5 (plus or minus 1.6) years before it develops a second prong, that a two-pronged plant will be 7.6 (plus or minus 2.4) years before developing a third prong, and that a three-pronged individual will average 13.5 (plus or minus 3.3) years before adding a fourth prong.”

For buyers, the nodes or the bud scars on the root coincide with the age of the plant, i.e. a five-year-old plant will have five bud scars.

Harvesting ginseng on public lands requires a permit, and harvesting on private land requires written permission from the owner. Buyers like Sentelle must have an annual dealer permit, and they are responsible for recording the name and address of everyone they purchase roots from.

North American ginseng was beginning to show signs of over-harvesting as early as the end of the 19th century. At that time, enterprising farmers and other entrepreneurs begin to try and cultivate the “little man.”

Wisconsin is the largest producer of field-grown ginseng in the U.S. In 1992, Wisconsin produced 1.7 million pounds, 97 percent of all cultivated ginseng in the U.S. This type of ginseng farming is very intensive and investment costs can run as much as $25,000 per acre.

There is also a large discrepancy in market price between cultivated and wild sang. The number one market for American ginseng is China, primarily Hong Kong. And the Chinese prefer older roots exhibiting a human-like appearance. Cultivated roots are generally cream-colored, fat and have few concentric rings, while the wild root is gnarled, dark and has many concentric rings. Cultivated roots might bring between $15 and $25 while wild roots are worth about $300.

Some sang growers are trying to bridge that gap with what is called “woods grown” or “wild-simulated ginseng.” Scott Persons of Tuckasegee is the area’s largest producer of woods-grown ginseng. He is owner of Tuckasegee Valley Ginseng and author of American Ginseng: Green Gold. Persons owns several plots in the region plus a ginseng farm in Australia. He started cultivating ginseng as a hobby and turned it into a business after he realized how much his crop was worth.

Persons said the value of woods-grown ginseng depends on what the root looks like.

“If it looks like wild, you can sell it as wild.”

‘Sangin’ in the mountains

Ginseng gathering in Appalachia is viewed more in the light of hunting or fishing than crop harvesting. A sang hunter would no more disclose his favorite cove than a trout fisherman would tell you where he caught the big one.

Ryan Holquist is from South Dakota, but his family moved here when he was very young. Western North Carolina is the only home he remembers. Holquist got hooked on sang hunting as teenager when he went out with one of his friends.

“I hunt deer and small game and the excitement of finding a big sang plant is like a successful hunt. When I go sanging, I usually take dinner and spend the day in the woods. Most people who are conscientious sang hunters go for the sheer fun of it,” Holquist said.

There is debate about the fate of native ginseng in the Southern Appalachians. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife fears that native ginseng is suffering from over-harvest. They are working with states and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to improve monitoring in order to better assess the impact of harvesting on wild ginseng.

Jim Corbin of the N.C. Department of Agriculture said poaching is the biggest threat to wild ginseng.

“Old-time diggers have done a good job of protecting their resource. But today we are faced with individuals who are in it for the short-time financial gain, and they don’t have the same ethics,” Corbin said.

Corbin said his department has been working with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and other national parks and forests where ginseng is protected to develop a dye that marks the roots so agents and buyers can recognize it and thwart poachers. Corbin said he doesn’t foresee any changes in ginseng regulations in the near future and that the traditional harvest of ginseng in the southern mountains would likely continue for some time.

As for this year, Sentelle said all indicators point to an average harvest, which means the purchase of 600 to 800 pounds for him. Most of the roots he buys come from Buncombe, Madison, Swain, Haywood, Jackson and Transylvania counties. He said Haywood, Jackson and Swain produced “choice” roots.