Tuolumne County Volunteers Take On Medicinal Herbs

With marginal soils, prolific deer, expensive water and numerous residents looking for something to grown on their five- to 200-acre home sites, Tuolumne County may be the ideal environment to cultivate medicinal herbs, said UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Franz Rulofson. Since production information is scarce, Rulofson has enlisted his corps of volunteer Master Gardeners to conduct research. Each of them will grow an herb this year on a 15-foot-by-15-foot plot at home. The herbs under study include echinacea, red clover, astragalus, mullein, stinging nettle, borage, golden seal, angelica, ashwagandha and lavender. “We want to know how well they will grow here, how high the yield is, how many seeds you need per acre and if there are any potential problems,” Rulofson said. Establishing olive trees for oil production or vineyards for wine can be prohibitively expensive. But the tremendous growth in the medicinal herb industry may make small farms productive with a relatively low initial investment. For more information, contact Franz Rulofson at (209) 533-5695, fcrulofson [at] ucdavis [dot] edu.