MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Researchers from Middle Tennessee State University are searching for ginseng in East Tennessee.
The Daily News Journal (http://on.dnj.com/19lZG1x) reports that trips into the hills of Cocke County are part of a collaborative research project by the Tennessee Center for Botanical Medicine Research at MTSU and the Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants in China.
MTSU says in a statement that the organizations have partnered in order to find "uses of ancient herbal remedies in modern medicine."
Professor Elliot Altman says researchers also want to see whether it is feasible for the school to grow ginseng that could be sold.
"The opportunity is either we start harvesting Tennessee-grown ginseng, or we get China to show us how to grow it," Altman said. "For them it's sort of an ulterior motive, I suppose. They can't make enough ginseng to satisfy their population. They're already importing. And one thing that's known is that Tennessee ginseng is the best. So, of course, that's one of the things we want to look at it."
State Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, recently led a small group on a hunt for the root, which sells for about $700 a pound. He says there's a limited number of people who really know how to find it in the wild.
"It's a closed situation; you wouldn't find but two people out of a hundred that even know it's in the state," Faison said. "There are people who have lived in East Tennessee forever and can't find it. A lot of stuff in the woods looks like 'seng.' There's a lot of people who would like to hunt 'seng,' but they just don't have an eye for it. No matter how hard they try, they'll just beat their head against a wall trying to find it. It takes someone showing you and really training your eye to find it."
The mountains of East Tennessee are ideal for growing ginseng, he said.
"It's also a perfect moisture area," Faison said. "The sun doesn't dry up the dirt. Most areas have clay, but here there's perfect dirt from years and years and years of the leaves mulching."
Professor Ying Gao, who is from China, said the roots in Tennessee vary some from those in China but both can improve health.
"What we are working on identifying is active compounds in traditional Chinese medicine to say whether they're effective," Ying said. "We consume a lot of ginseng in China. Basically, we just soak the ginseng and drink it. Or we cook it as soup; we'll boil it in chicken soup. ... We believe it has an overall health benefit."
Altman said any future farming of the root at MTSU would benefit students.
"They'd go out to the MTSU farms, and they'd be responsible for growing it," Altman said. "If we can grow enough of it, MTSU can make some money. Students would help with that whole process."
Information from: The Daily News Journal, http://www.dnj.com
