Abstract

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) is an economically important, but increasingly threatened, herbaceous perennial species native to eastern North America. The roots have long been prized in Asian medicine, and are beginning to be used more in the West for herbal supplements. Much research is focused on ginsenosides, the active medicinal compounds found in American ginseng. Given the conservation concerns regarding wild American ginseng, we began experimenting with a partial-root harvest method in 2014 for extracting tissue for ginsenoside analysis without killing individual plants or causing long-term declines in wild populations. Partial-root harvest samples were taken from 57 plants in four wild populations throughout western North Carolina. Of the 57 plants subjected to partial- root harvest in 2014, 51 (89%) reemerged in 2015, 45 (79%) reemerged in 2016, 22 (39%) reemerged in 2017, and 28 (49%) reemerged in 2018. These resprout rates were similar to paired unharvested plants (86%, p = 0.568; 82%, p = 0.668; 46%, p = 0.400; and 41%, p = 0.390, respectively). Partial-root harvested plants had significantly shorter stems (p = 0.0289) and smaller leaf area (p = 0.0001) than unharvested plants the 1st year after harvest. However, there were no significant differences in any plant metric between these two groups of plants by the 2nd year after harvest. Additional analyses also compared preharvest reproductive and morphological attributes for a larger set of plants (n = 219) in 20 populations subjected to partial-root harvest from 2014-2016 with the attributes for each subsequent year after harvest. Some trends that emerged in this preharvest - postharvest study were stem length being significantly lower in each postharvest year compared to the preharvest year, and the 2nd year after harvest being the only year where all plant metrics were significantly lower than the preharvest year. However, trends in this study were more variable than those from the paired comparison study. This variability could be due to several factors such as interannual variation in weather, the larger number of populations sampled as well as their difference in protection status, and the fact that some data for these analyses will not be collected until the 2019 and 2020 field seasons. Overall, the results of the more rigorous paired comparison study demonstrate that partial-root harvest could be an effective way for ginsenoside researchers to reduce their impact on wild American ginseng populations.

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