Research assistant tends to Chinese medicinal herb root crops at the N.C. Department of Agriculture’s research station in Waynesville.
Research team transplants Chinese medicinal herbs for yield trials at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center at Mills River in Henderson County in 2024.
Research assistant tends to Chinese medicinal herb root crops at the N.C. Department of Agriculture’s research station in Waynesville.
Research team transplants Chinese medicinal herbs for yield trials at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center at Mills River in Henderson County in 2024.
A $96,925 grant from the N.C. Department of Agriculture’s New and Emerging Crops Program is focused on commercial production of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs in western North Carolina.
The grant was awarded this fall to North Carolina State University’s Department of Horticultural Science to build on research by the N.C. Alternative Crops and Organics Program, primarily at the NCDA’s Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River in Henderson County.
An NCDA news release said North Carolina is uniquely positioned to meet growing consumer, herb buyer and practitioner demand for domestic production of high-quality medicinal herbs. Examples include Ju hua and Chrysanthemum morifolium.
“North Carolina is suited to the production of many traditional Chinese medicinal herb species because of geographical similarity, but production information and recommendations for North Carolina growers are limited,” the release said.
“This project will build on current research by the N.C. Alternative Crops and Organics Program… by expanding field trials to a larger scale, increasing domestically available propagation stock, providing samples of North Carolina-grown herbs to buyers, facilitating buyer-grower relationships and developing production recommendations.”
The goal of the grant-funded initiative is to contribute to the limited commercial production resources available for growing Chinese herbs in North Carolina, said N.C. State University researcher Dr. Jeanine Davis, an associate professor and extension specialist in the NCSU Department of Horticultural Science. Davis is based at the research station in Mills River.
“Just like with so many other herbs, when people go to produce them commercially, the material available to them is all home-gardener information, and what works for a few plants or a little home garden isn’t necessarily practical or feasible on a commercial scale,” said Davis.
“We’re trying to help with production on a commercial scale and provide a new opportunity for farmers to explore a new crop.”
Much of the focus therefore is on yield trials to help determine productivity of the herbs in North Carolina, said Margaret Bloomquist, a research scholar in Davis’ program. Those trials are at the research station in Mills River and an NCDA research station near Waynesville.
The trials also are on two farms in Buncombe County, one focused on shade herbs and the other on sun-loving species of Chinese medicinal herbs.
Another focus is on sourcing and propagating the plants for the quantity needed for commercial production to address the lack of availability of seeds and planting stock for Chinese medicinal herbs in North America, Bloomquist said.
“Many of these species are perennial root crops with unusual requirements. These types of crops may present a learning curve for farmers, so we’re working on establishing best practices in regard to growing perennial root crops in our current agricultural system,” she added.
Efforts so far found that many of the herbs have few disease or insect issues at this scale and require little fertilizer relative to other crops. Bloomquist said the resulting low-input needed is appeals to small growers, those in vegetable production and those interested in organic farming.
The perennial nature of many of the herbs appeals to growers wanting to reduce labor and mitigate soil needs involved in turning over a field every season, she said. Some of the harvest timeframes are positive attributes because they fall during times when other crops don’t need to be harvested and they provide season extension to diverse operations.
Davis and Bloomquist said Asheville and surrounding areas ahave Chinese herb gardens and practitioners who use and sell Chinese medicinal herbs. Seminars and buy-and-sell events have been held to help growers connect with users, buyers and other growers.
Davis said a partnership with herbalist Thomas Avery Garran has been helpful. Garran lived in China for many years before returning to the United States. He helped translate a major Chinese medicinal herb book into English to help people like Davis and Bloomquist utilize its information.
“He’s been a great partner because he was able to – with all his contacts in China – help find sources for seeds for the project. He’s really knowledgeable about these plants. He is an herbalist, so he also knows how to use them,” Davis said, adding that he is better qualified to evaluate the quality of what is grown.
We’re used to working with crops like potatoes and tomatoes and peppers that all have USDA grade standards that tell you whether you’ve done a good job or not. Having these herbalists that really know the herbs come, they can smell it and taste it and look at it and give us a good quality assessment.”
A next step is to dig deeper into post-harvest handling such as washing and drying herb crops. Bloomquist said that could involve pursuing a follow-up grant. They’re focusing on the scope of the current project for now. Davis said the New and Emerging Crops Program grant made this possible.
“The biggest chunk [of the grant award] goes to paying the staff to work on the project,” Davis said. “So it gives us the staff to do this work, and it allows us to maintain people in the program to develop that continuity that we need so someone becomes an expert within our program.”
She said the grant also funded supplies and travel to test sites and to visit partners or field experts.
“Programs like mine don’t have operating budgets. When the public expresses an interest in something and wants us to work on something – whether it’s herbs or hops or ginseng – we have to go find the funding to make it happen,” Davis said. “It’s often hard to find funding for new crops. So this [New and Emerging Crops] program has been amazing to my program that exists primarily to do this – to explore new possibilities.”
Davis’ work on Chinese medicinal herbs in North Carolina goes back to at least the early 90s, when ginseng scientist Che Xizhe from China was working in her research program at the station in Mills River and started exploring whether any of vegetables or other plants on the station had medicinal properties.
By 1992, the curiosity led to working with Joe Hollis, who operated an apothecary and medicinal herb gardens called Mountain Gardens in the Mount Mitchell/Burnsville area. Exploration turned to research and Hollis was a consultant for Davis and her team until he died in November 2023.
“He was one of the most knowledgeable people about Chinese medicinal herbs that I’ve ever met,” Davis said. “We spent a lot of time with Joe talking about Chinese herbs and similarities of plants in China and here in North America.”
By the time Hollis died in the fall of 2023, Davis had begun the research effort that that received the NCDA New and Emerging Crops Program grant..
Davis and her team have for several years sought funding for researching Chinese medicinal herbs in North Carolina. In 2009, Mayland Community College offered a grant for initial research. That project involved Hollis, Barry Thorne of Golden Needle acupuncture and herbal supply near Asheville, some local extension agents and even a consultant in New York – Jean Giblett of High Falls Gardens.
Giblett encouraged Davis many times to do more exploration about whether Chinese medicinal herbs would grow well in North Carolina. She had her own experience with the topic, having worked with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
“Every time we met at a conference, she would bring it up [and say] ‘Jeanine, you need to do this,’” Davis explained. “And we wrote so many grant proposals together and with others for years trying to get funding, but nobody was interested because it wasn’t a thing yet.”
At the time, the New and Emerging Crops Program didn’t exist, nor did the USDA Specialty Crops Block Grant Program, which Davis has also used to fund projects. The grant from Mayland Community College made it possible to plant Chinese medicinal herbs in western North Carolina, to test their success and propagate plants.
“What we were really after was trying to see what plants would thrive where,” Davis said. “We found that some things did really, really poorly here in the Southern mountains, but you got up into a much higher elevation, and they did really well. When we had visitors come in from China they were not surprised at all by those results.”
In the years since that project, members of Davis’s crew continued to maintain the herbs that had been planted. Some additional funding helped with that maintenance and ongoing observations. Thorne continued to work with anyone growing Chinese medicinal herbs locally, and in his catalogue of herbs, he designated which herbs he sourced from the region.
“It’s still hard convincing practitioners that we can produce the quality (of herbs) that may be superior to material we’re getting imported,” Davis said. “So that led us to the 2023 New and Emerging Crops Program grant.”
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