RootReport Preliminary Results for 2015

We here at Virginia Tech’s RootReport are excited to release data on the 2015 native medicinal plant harvest, and would like to thank everyone who participated in our study. We are preparing to publish these results and a summary of our 3 years of data collection in greater detail, but thought it would be useful to make preliminary figures available for the many people who work with non-timber forest products. Our numbers for 14 of the more commonly traded native forest medicinal species were collected through a survey of 131 registered ginseng buyers in 15 states. Wild-harvested material accounts for the vast majority of current output for the products we surveyed. The one exception is goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis). A survey by the American Herbal Products Association of its members found that 24 percent of goldenseal purchased from 2005-2010 was cultivated (AHPA 2012). By comparison, the next most commonly cultivated of our surveyed products in the same period was false unicorn (Chamaelirium lutem) (4%) and black cohosh (Actaea racemosa) (2%).