HOUGHTON LAKE -- One by one, ginseng seeds
slowly slip through Michael Hunter's fingers.
His eyes grow big at the sight of thousands
of tan and brown pellet-sized kernels overflowing from a cardboard
box. In another life, he could be a pirate caressing shipwrecked
gold coins -- loving them as much for their beauty as promise of
wealth.
"Oh wow. Look at 'em," Hunter
whispers. "See how that seed is grinning? That is one pretty
seed."
Gnarled, bitter and seductive, woods-grown
ginseng fetches $300 a pound and has been coveted for millennia.
Lore claims its sale helped finance the American Revolution. Now,
it's creeping back from near extinction in Michigan because of
folks like Hunter.
Since beating cancer in 2003, he's been
reborn as a self-styled Johnny Ginseng seed, dedicating his final
years to spreading millions of seeds in hidden corners of
Michigan's hardwood forests.
But the root prized by Asians for balancing
yin and yang and credited with boosting immune systems is
returning in the shadows -- so secretively Michigan agricultural
agents barely acknowledge the existence of the state's 300
growers.
The shades are drawn as Hunter inspects seeds
in his house off Houghton Lake, perhaps with good reason. Illegal
to harvest in Michigan from 1973-95 -- and still a misdemeanor to
pick on public lands -- ginseng hasn't shaken its reputation as a
backdoor business teeming with poachers, cheats and cutthroats.
They're drawn to eye-popping prices: Roots
that live 60, 70 or 100 years can fetch thousands of dollars.
Potato blight and over-harvesting by scavengers decimated wild
Michigan ginseng in the '60s. Foragers included Hunter, the latest
in a family line of pickers he dates to the War of 1812.
"You might say I emptied the register
once and now I can fill it up again," says Hunter, 62, a
onetime forester, gold miner, circus-camel herder and Skid Row
beat cop in his hometown of Jackson.
"I can bring it back, doing my
modern-day Johnny Appleseed thing with ginseng."
By his reckoning, he's put 56 million plants in the ground in the
past 10 years from Missouri to Montreal. Now, he's focusing solely
on Michigan, working from a secret root cellar in Tustin next to
his 115-acre "ginseng showplace" and slowly spreading
his way north from East Lansing.
'BRING
GINSENG'
If anyone knows how much American ginseng --
Panax quinquefolius, perhaps the most desired strain in the world
-- rests in Michigan soils near poplars and oaks, they're not
telling.
Officially, state growers sold 20,000 pounds
in 2001, the last year of available records.
"Interest in ginseng has definitely increased. People come to
the forest and ask where it is. We don't tell them," says
Jeff Pullen, resources officer of the Huron-Manistee National
Forest in the northern Lower Peninsula.
"There's a lot out there, and it's
making a remarkable comeback."
This year, managers of the 1-million-acre
forest began a 12-year venture with three Michigan tribes to seed
some 80,000 acres and "strengthen the virility" of
existing ginseng, Pullen says.
American Indians have long used the root in
ceremonies and as medicine. Credited with boosting immune systems
and mental clarity, it's forever commanded a nice price -- as
George Washington knew well.
"The war effort needs money, bring
ginseng," he wrote Daniel Boone, according to the book
"Woodland Nuggets of Gold."
For years, Asian markets dominated the
ginseng trade. Taiwan alone imports $5 billion worth a year,
according to the Canadian Trade Office of Tapei. Elsewhere, demand
has soared with the takeoff of the herbal supplements industry,
which usually relies on a less potent, cheaper strain of ginseng.
Various estimates peg U.S. sales at $4 billion to $12 billion.
But the good stuff -- the wild stuff, one of
more than 20 grades of ginseng -- has been illegal to pick in
Michigan since 1973's U.S. Endangered Species Act. Nineteen states
allow limited culls, but ginseng was illegal to pluck -- even on
private lands -- in Michigan until 1995. Harvesting planted roots
is now OK.
"I swear to God, that's what broke my
father's heart," Hunter says. "I don't think he ever
enjoyed life again."
'Only poachers
profit'
His father, Harold Hunter, died in the
mid-1980s, long after passing on to his son a love of the twisty,
multi-tentacled root.
Hunter says "ginseng has always been a
big part of my life one way or another," but he's guarded
about his activities during the time picking was outlawed in
Michigan. He admits being approached with deals and
"chauffeuring a few Chinese men," but denies ever
poaching.
"Why, that would have been
illegal," he says with a grin.
Plundering is such an issue in the South that
rangers sometimes color roots with dyes to track them. In 2002,
Michigan conservation officers busted a ring of 38 Korean
immigrants picking through Lake Michigan dunes near Benton Harbor.
The arrests "acted as a deterrent,"
but state officers suspect thieves may be moving north up the
coastline, says Mary Dettloff, spokeswoman of the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources.
'Karma tied to
success'
Some experts claim growing ginseng to get rich is a fool's errand:
The crop takes at least five years to mature and is vulnerable to
insects, rot, deer and its natural fragility. Growing best in
shade in older, mineralized subsoils, plants get to about 2 feet
tall. Their roots reach 3-8 inches.
"It's certainly not trouble-free. There
are many challenges," says Mary Hausbeck, a Michigan State
University professor who studies cultivated ginseng.
An Upper Peninsula operation has tried for
years to profit off ginseng, says Joe Heil, president of the
Ginseng Board of Wisconsin.
He invested $35,000 planting 700 pounds of seed on 10 acres."
I thought it would be a cash cow," he says. "I won't
lose money, but would I do it again?"
He pauses and never answers his own question. But the possibility
remains and tantalizes.
Hunter says he's spent more than a decade
perfecting his seeds, cross-breeding generation after generation
from thriving woods plants into a wonder seed. He boasts a
germination rate of some 90 percent, which Heil deems
"impossible" but Pullen and others don't discount.
Barron xxxxxxx, a Montreal engineer, paid
$10,000 to plant 100 pounds of Hunter's seeds in 2004. This fall,
he plans to recoup his investment by pulling 5,000 2-year-old
roots and selling them for $2 apiece. Theoretically, his 30 acres
one day may be worth $4 million.
Hunter's live-in companion, Bobbie Squires,
assists with his business operations and operates the Web site, www.ginseng-seed.com.
New to the industry, she's seen how it affects men. At first,
they're intrigued. Then, the plant's distinctive strawberry-like
leaves and red berries bloom.
"They see all that money in the berries
and everything changes," Squires says.
Hunter knows the feeling. He's proud to call ginsengers "the
last true independent Americans," but knows they inhabit a
"Wild West" world.
He may have his toes in it, but Hunter calls
himself a simple seed man who knows better than to ask many
questions. His focus is singular: a Michigan woods teeming with
bitter, glorious ginseng. It can happen, he says, one seed at a
time.
"Some people can't get the image out of their minds that
people are pilfering the woods, like we're hunting rhinos,"
he says. "But this should be a legacy to our children and
grandchildren. There really is something to ginseng. I've survived
too long and too much for there not to be."
You can reach Joel Kurth at (313) 222-2610 or jkurth@detnews.com.
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