 
 
What we have here is the location
where I buried last year's ginseng seeds,
put them in stratification.
There's a small screen wire
container bag and they've been
in this location between the two little yellow
flag markers
since about this time last year. So what
we're going to do is dig them up
wash them and clean them. Then we're going to use the
same bag to prepare this year's
seeds mixed with sand to be
stratified for next year's seed
crop. So, I'll proceed to dig these up and
we can see what they look like.
You notice they're just, oh
maybe three inches from the surface...
the top end of the bag... maybe three inches
below the surface of the ground. That way
they can get the rain moisture.
In other words they're not buried
all that deep. The purpose of the
stratification primarily is to protect
the seeds, because they have to go through
two winters
before they will germinate.
Most seed, if you plant them, they will
germinate
when the weather permits the following
growing season.
Ginseng requires two growing seasons to
pass before the seed will fully mature
and germinate. So in order to protect
the seed and give it maximum protection,
it's common practice to stratify the seed
that way you have all your seeds
together and they're protected, whereas
without stratification if you
plant so-called green seed
which is ginseng seed that has not
been stratified,
if you plant green seed then
that seed is at the mercy of nature for two
years
and a lot of the seeds theoretically anyhow won't
survive. If they're stratified, then
there is a better chance, a greater chance of the seed surviving
and germinating.
There's a lot of roots in it. I don't know if they're ginseng early seeds 
that have germinated. No, that's weed seed…the weed roots.
It's just a bag of sand 
with the seed in it. There's an awful
lot of floaters there.
As a matter of fact, I think
most of them are floaters.
The good seed, the viable seed
has what they call a corneal in it and it's moist - what
they call a moist seed
and the moisture in the seed itself won't allow it to float. It will sink
to the bottom. There's not many seeds left.
See, it's okay to let these seeds
air-dry on the surface
but don't let it go beyond that. The seed inside is
still moist and viable but if they stay out in the
air, sunshine, they will die.
They've been fermenting for a few days.
What I'm going to do is clean them
and prepare them for stratification. 
These are the seeds and the residue
from the berries.
You see there's an awful lot of junk
pouring out of there and if you continue to pour water off of them,
you eventually end up with
reasonably clean seeds.
Until they get fully ripe then
there's a very high percentage of seeds that are not viable.
They won't germinate. In other words if 
they're not,
if they haven't turned red,
then the seed won't
germinate. There's a mixture of sand and seeds that goes into the bag
and the sand is fine enough that it goes through the screen. If 
you just put sand in it, it will run out. So
in order to hold, to contain the sand
until I can get it buried in the ground I
simply put a piece a newspaper in it
and that contains the sand
until I can get it buried. Once it's buried,
then the screen is in contact with the
soil and the sand will no longer spill out.
The idea of the screen is
so the seeds won't stand waterlogged. Now I'll just put a layer berries and a layer of sand.
The sand holds just enough moisture
to keep the
seeds moist without waterlogging them because
the water will drain right through that sand and soak into the soil.
I don't know that the cover is
necessary but I've got one here so I'll just put it in.
 
Well, that's it. Ready to bury it.
And you can mark your location
and forget about it until next year.