The history and the future prospects of ginseng study in the Russian Far East

Abstract

By the middle of XXth century wild ginseng has been practically extincted from the forest lands of Korea and China. Owing to the duly imposed restrictions for ginseng harvesting in the Russian taiga, its natural population were conserved in mountain areas served as a refuge for the Far East relict flora during last glaciation. Molecular studies of allozyme spectra and DNA-marker probes revealed low level of genetic polymorphism of the species, besides, polymorphism between populations was lower than inside populations, which normally happens when the species is threatened with extinction. To protect available genetic resources, the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences and Primorsky Krai Administration developed and started to effect Ginseng Reproduction Program, but its financing stopped, and they never got a chance to gain the intended results on the Program. The studies established that all the natural ginseng populations in Primorsky Territory was greatly changed are contaminated by plants (also wild growing) from other populations as result of forest farmer activity - hidden plantations, where ginseng farmers sowed seeds and grew young plants for merchantable condition. As far as people gathered ginseng through the whole Primorsky Territory and set the plants in a selected place, located far from harvesting place, the plants of different origin were mixed. Sometimes, the local plants and the plants brought from other populations had a slight difference. This fact made problems for genetic investigations, as well as called for making adjustments to the strategy for preservation of the species. The main threat for natural ginseng populations after our State reconstruction in 1991 was depletion of taiga natural resources by smugglers from the neighboring countries. As result, the RF lost the significant part of its unique ginseng gene pool and Chinese companies became monopoly suppliers of really wild growing ginseng (which, in fact, was grown from Primorye seeds). The analysis of great amount of seized plants shows that the amount of high-grade ginseng roots in illegal harvesting becomes annually low and the amount of poor-grade roots increases annually.
These data evidence the progressive depletion of ginseng natural populations. Despite the wide market of cultivated ginseng in Korea and China, the roots of a wild ginseng are in a bigger demand. Plantation ginseng in most cases does not correspond the category of a high-grade stock and the plants expose to great attrition because of the various infections during a longtime growing in one place due to the biological features of the given species. The development of technologies for growing, breeding, protecting and deep processing of especially valuable medicinal plants will allow reviving one of the highest marginal industries in the Far East with significant export potential. Now, domestic ginseng growers are faced with the task of restoring ginseng production and, using the advantages of plants from preserved natural populations, take a worthy place in international trade. To enlarge ginseng population to the industrial scales and selection of sustainable successful lines, active introduction of fundamental science including new methods of molecular genetics, such as genomic and proteomic technologies with simultaneous enlarging partnership with foreign scientific and industrial organizations of the East Asia.