Sustainable Ginseng by Madison Woods

Author:Madison Woods [Woods, Madison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crafts; Hobbies & Home, Gardening & Landscape Design, Herbs, Science & Math, Environment, Environmentalism, Nature & Ecology, Conservation, 90 Minutes (44-64 Pages), Gardening & Horticulture, ginseng
ISBN: 9781495294358
Google: joX4ngEACAAJ
Amazon: B00HW50LQ4
Publisher: Wild Ozark
Published: 2014-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

In addition to habitat destruction and over-harvesting from people, wildlife does take a toll. Deer browse the leaves, wild hogs root the whole plant up, and turkey eats the berries. Healthy colonies with enough plants can also recover from natural wildlife predation, although a herd of wild hogs can decimate a large amount of acreage. We would be inclined to remove as many hogs as we could from our property, if they were very plentiful.

Deer predation can be a problem if the population of deer is too large. At 14 deer per square kilometer (an area about 247 acres), a ginseng colony can maintain and not decline in number because of deer browsing. A population below 14 deer means the number of ginseng plants per colony can grow.1 Although it does seem like there are a lot of deer in the Ozarks, according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the goal is to keep the deer population between 25-30 deer per square mile2 (an area of 640 acres). If this is actually our population of deer, then it is comfortably below the critical 14 deer per square kilometer and deer browsing the ginseng should not be the reason for the decreasing ginseng population. Wild turkeys can also wreak havoc on ginseng reproduction because the seed is destroyed when it passes through the craw. Seeds traverse the digestive system of most birds unharmed and then take root wherever dropped, but the turkey’s craw grinds the seeds and renders them useless.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.