Jerry Davis Wild ginseng gathering season needs to be about more than putting a screwdriver in the soil to carefully extract a root. Farmers and other landowners should become knowledgeable about the perennial herb – many already are. They need to decide the plant’s importance to the land, and consider some conservation methods to keep a healthy, perpetuating population.
Wild ginseng -- Panax quinquefolium – is Wisconsin’s state herb. It has a valuable much-forked taproot that can be harvested during an autumn season. The harvesting is strictly regulated, requiring a harvester’s or digger’s license.
Harvesters can only take plants with at least three compound leaves, and a fruit stalk where berries are still present or were produced. Permission from a landowner is required. Harvesting on state property, state parks and wildlife areas is forbidden.
In 2023 there were 440 residents and 23 non-residents who purchased harvester licenses costing $15.75 for residents and $30.75 for non-residents.
Wild ginseng plants, this one a four-pronger, are easy to locate due to their red berries Don Martin at Martin’s in Monroe, Wisconsin, said he sells one or two harvester licenses each fall to Green County residents. Will Hsu at Hsu’s Ginseng Enterprises in Marathon County, Wisconsin, said he purchased wild dried root for about $800 per pound this past year. Green root is also purchased; fresh root dries to about 75 percent – so the price before drying is usually about 25 percent of what dried root brings.
But the ginseng season is and should be more about recognizing the plants, admiring their beauty, planting the seeds – two per fruit – and then leaving the perennial herb to grow another year or decade before digging it. If in a woods, protect the valuable resource. Ginseng’s red berries are ripening now, some falling from plants that are 1 to 2 feet tall.
Pick the red berries that remain on the plant and squeeze them. Then put the skin, flesh and seed or seeds a half-inch below the leaf litter and compress the soil. A bumblebee in search of nectar and pollen checks out a white-pine bud.
It may be of interest to mark the area to see if the seeds germinate, which could take as long as two years. Harvesting the root, which will destroy the plant, should not be attempted for at least 10 years after planting. But photographing or otherwise documenting growth changes may be exciting.
Fruits on oak, hickories, dogwoods, grape, woodbine, chestnut, elderberry, butternut, walnut, corn, plum, apple and crabapple are all ripe or beginning to ripen. Many plants are putting on a great crop, though oak trees seem to be headed for a depressingly poor year – both red and white species. White pine produces cones, not fruit, but those trees also seem to have few second-year seed cones, which would normally drop seeds this autumn.
Bret Schultz, a trout-fishing sage in Black Earth, Wisconsin, said he’s looking to finish the 2024 season, which ends Oct. 15. He’s waiting for his recent order of fly-tying supplies to arrive.
“I’m looking forward to the last two months of the season,” he said. “Streams in Richland County and surrounding areas are full of fish, and have been and should continue to provide fantastic fishing. Black Earth Creek is really tough, compared to steams farther north.
I love some of those streams that are still pastured (so) I can fish with the cows, which brings back memories of earlier days.” Double dipping to Schultz means fishing a morning in Dane County and then heading to Richland County in the afternoon. He never takes a trout home.
Furbearer trapping for Wayne Smith of Lafayette County, Wisconsin, is not as easy as scouting for turkeys or deer. “It could be a case of putting together what conditions were last year, judging whether (muskrats) might have a late litter, and scouting during the two days when it’s allowed on federal land before the auction to buy a designated trapping area on a refuge,” he said. Dented field corn means white-tailed deer will soon be adding corn ears to their diets.
Doug Williams at DW Sports Center in Portage, Wisconsin, reminds anglers that fishing is good and improving. Some large muskies being netted along with some accidental catches and releases of catfish, paddlefish and sturgeon. The water levels in the Wisconsin River should make the September hook and line season much better than recent past years.
Hunting supplies should be good this fall but not all the old brands are available. “Pick it up if you see it,” he said. “(But) if it’s a 30-06 caliber, no problem.
” Small falls of all sorts are beginning to show. There are dropped leaflets from woodbine, walnut and aspen. A few flowers bring a sharp contrast with greens, yellows, purples and blues.
Some wild apple trees certainly have a pie or two in the offing, but only if deer don’t get them first. This is an original article written for Agri-View, a Lee Enterprises agricultural publication based in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit AgriView.
com for more information. Jerry Davis is a freelance outdoors writer. Contact him at sivadjam@mhtc.
net or 608-924-1112 for more information. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
