I'm following my friend mikee we on
private property he's going to tell us
all about growing gin sing if the wind
will let us record that
is okay so what we have here is wild
American Jens sing um it's a very prized
plant it's very famous for its
adaptogenic qualities uh helping your
body to um recover from stress and to
deal with stress a lot better as well as
um to give you more energy so the useful
part of this plant is the root and
unfortunately digging up the root kills
the plant so there are many laws
governing its harvesting um make sure
you know what your uh local and federal
laws are regarding its harvesting um I
have a couple little specimens I can
show you um regarding their uh how far
they allarm and their life cycle this is
your classic picture here of a wild
American gin sang plant this is called a
three Pronger I don't know if you can
see but we have a stem comes up and
divides into three little stems and on
each stem there's a five leaf
whirl that is very characteristic of
wild American gensen if you look in the
center there can uh there's going to be
a seed Berry stem that will come up
later in the season um these are common
ways to identify it there are a couple
other smaller younger species around
they're this one here is probably about
2 years old these are probably about 2
or 3 years old right here if you can see
these um the three prong ones are
usually between say four or more years
old uh the plant is a perennial it comes
up every year um and unless uh you dig
the root up it'll just keep every year
get the root will get bigger and uh
traditionally the older the plant is the
more valuable it is and it's also more
effective as far as its
uses if you look right here this I found
is another little Jensen plant that got
its leaves I think chewed off maybe from
a deer um I found one of these and this
is actually a Jensen plant I can tell um
and that looks like a three Pronger now
that one I don't believe the plant is
dead but for this year it will not
produce any berries so it'll just go
into dormant mode which is what happens
if the plant dies but you don't take the
root
of okay Jens sing is a plant that can be
cultivated um as long as you do it with
care um every one of the Jin sing plants
that I'm showing you today is a result
of me cultivating it um from a patch
that I found somewhere else in the same
set of woods and transplanted it here
some 25 years ago
um clearly these are not the same plants
um but they are descendants of them once
I did get them here um each year I would
take the berries that come off of it and
I would scatter them around so they
would start a new um a new generation of
them there's uh also other techniques
you can do to help to cultivate them so
you can get seedlings which you can
plant which uh maybe we'll speak about
that later these uh plants need this
Forest
LOM if you see all the leaves it's got
to be a very rich forest floor the soil
that it needs as well as about an 80%
shade rate so if you take a look at the
trees up top you'll notice that it can't
be in a full sun area um now there's
also uh different commercial Growers who
will cultivate jinang on a mass scale
and they use um
netting to get that shade requirement as
well as they'll give the the other soil
requirements they need um but like I
said uh these are all a result of me
transplanting some which I had to dig
the full root up and make sure you get
the whole plant otherwise it'll kill the
plant you get the full root and you have
to keep it kind of moist and then you
bring it to the new location that
hopefully will take root again and then
you know we cultivate it by um digging
it down and planting it as soon as you
can afterwards so
from a berry if you plant Jens sing it
will not come up the next year there's
also a saying that a gensing berry will
grow after it's passed through a bird
which means the Bird eats it and then it
um it's in its droppings and then after
that it will be ready to grow but um
there's a technique you can use where
you can take the berries and put them in
sand and and maybe a small um what would
be a little tray where you have sand
with a berry in in it and you bury it
down very shallowly so then the next
year you come back and the berry is now
a small seedling then you take the
seedling out and you'll plant it so then
the seedling will then come up the next
year and it'll be one little strand
coming up with three leaves on it and
then the following year it'll send up
another shoot that'll look like this one
which is two prongs which will have
three leaves on each and then the
following year it'll get a little little
older and then it may have five leaves
on each and then as it gets older it'll
have the three prongs now the three
prongs are the only ones that you can
legally Harvest because it's old enough
for it to go through its life cycle
um and you harvest them in the fall
after the berries have already had a
chance to um drop and be scattered so it
can propagate the Next
Generation Um but once again look into
your local laws regarding that okay
right here this is actually the area
where I transplanted some of those other
plants I was telling you about um this
right here seems to be a very old strong
three-prong plant this is a very mature
plant and if you look underneath you'll
see many little younger plants actually
several different Generations it looks
like that have been from the berries
coming down there so this would lend me
to think that uh it doesn't necessarily
say that the the seed has to go through
a bird first before it's okay but this
here points out that I think that that
this is the matriarch of the group so to
speak so this is a very unique find to
see something that's been undisturbed
quite this long over here there's a few
more in this area here is a nice strong
three prong one right here and then
there's a couple of other smaller
younger ones here's a little topr one
couple more over here if you can see
that I would say this plant at the very
least um for something to be that mature
I would say it's at least 7 or 8 years
old