About Ginseng Pest Control
Ginseng pests include bugs that eat ginseng as well as other insects or wildlife that live on and injure the plant. In fact, you can define garden pests as anything that interferes with the desired growth of your ginseng, including rodents. Treating ginseng pests is a little tricky since you intend to consume the plant yourself when it is mature. That means that standard pesticides may not be appropriate for ginseng pest control. Don’t rush out to stock up on chemicals and repellants to start treating ginseng pests. The optimal manner to keep ginseng insects away or rodents from your crop is to select an appropriate growing site. An ideal growing site is one that offers the same conditions under which ginseng thrives in the wild. The plant thrives when growing beneath mature hardwood trees, benefitting from both the shade they offer and the microflora and fauna provided. If you are able to supply this growing situation, you may not need to worry about how to get rid of pests on ginseng. However, most gardeners have a hard time matching this natural environment.
How to Get Rid of Pests on Ginseng
You aren’t likely to find many pesticides labeled for use on ginseng, nor will you want to use just any pesticide. However, you can use organic methods to get rid of several bugs that eat ginseng. For example, you may find that worms or slugs are eating your ginseng seeds before they germinate. You can find organic pesticides to eliminate slugs and hard-bodied caterpillars, or you can pick them off by hand. You can also use home remedies. Applying sawdust or ashes as a mulch keeps crawling insects and slugs away from your plants. Slugs also love beer, so you can put some in a saucer. The slugs will come to drink, slip in and drown. If the pests eating your ginseng are rodents, you have a choice of possible methods of control. You can install barriers in the soil and around the ginseng bed that rodents cannot penetrate. Use metal flashing that extends a foot (30 cm.) above and a foot below the soil surface. You can also set out traps or poison to kill mice, rats, and moles. Take care that the methods of ginseng pest control you use won’t injure or kill pets or other wildlife.
