Description
What to Expect
This is the first text in the English language with authentic information for growing and processing Chinese herbs. The authors of the original Chinese text are authorities on the subject who brought together a team of over 100 experts to contribute and produced the gold-standard for growing and processing herbs using modern agriculture informed by traditional techniques. The text details 39 common Chinese herbs with annotation from the translator’s personal experience as a farmer and researcher making the text both readable and practical for the modern farmer. The book offers details such ecological habitat; rainfall; soil conditions; seed requirements; planting and transplanting instructions; weed, pest, and disease management; harvesting; and the post-harvest processing required to produce high quality, authentic Chinese herbs anywhere in the world using the same standards used in China.
Endorsements from the Back Cover
“As someone who has spent the over a decade growing Chinese herbs domestically, I have struggled to find sources for information on the cultivation of Chinese herbs. While analyzing what was available in English, it quickly became clear that the information was inadequate. Questions on ideal growing regions, soil requirements, cultivation length and/or post-harvest processing methods frequently led to dead ends. So, I began translating the Chinese sources. Then I started finding the contradictions. Then I did my own research to compare the quality of the medicinal materials produced according to the contradictory methods. Every time, I discovered that the Chinese sources were correct and what was available in English, information not from Chinese sources, was incorrect. So, I stopped looking at the sources available in English and focused exclusively on the Chinese material. It was like watching a black and white movie turn to color. Everyone should have this experience and now they can.
For the first time, an authoritative Chinese text on the cultivation of Chinese medicinals has been translated and made available in English. The translator, Thomas Avery Garran, is a clinician, herb grower, wild-crafter, medicinal plant pharmacologist, and Chinese language translator. He is one of a handful of Americans, maybe less, qualified to produce material on the production of Chinese herbs. He is also a resident scholar at the Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing. He has uniquely positioned himself to be a human bridge between the previously separate worlds of traditional Chinese daodi herb cultivation and the domestic cultivation of Chinese herbs. In a time of rising division and xenophobia, the work of Thomas Avery Garran is even more admirable, as it represents a joining together, an integration of the other, a pathway to becoming whole again.”
Timothy Ross, DAOM
Postdoctoral fellow, University of Washington
Senior Researcher, University of California, Irvine
“This book is a much needed and important reference for the growing and processing of Traditional Chinese Medicinal (TCM) herbs for present day China and the world beyond. Unlike most western herbs, how and where the herb is grown, and how it is harvested and processed are critical to the quality and use of the herb. The traditional information on these techniques is usually passed on orally or can be found in ancient texts that few people can either read or understand. I am grateful to the translator for taking the initiative and having the patience, tenacity, knowledge, and experience necessary to create this work. I already have several North American books on growing Chinese medicinal herbs, and they are quite good. But they either do not mention, or inadequately describe the traditional handling and processing techniques of the herbs. Several TCM practitioners in my area told me that is one of the main reasons that they are reluctant to use many North American grown TCM herbs. North American grown herbs may be fresher and safer for the consumer than those imported from China, but if the herbs are not harvested and processed correctly, they do not have the same healing properties. I also appreciate that food safety is addressed in this book. The translator scrutinized and modified the traditional handling and processing techniques to ensure the quality and safety of the herbs for the consumer. I look forward to adding this book to my own collection and referencing it often as my staff and I continue to study how to grow Chinese medicinal herbs in the Southeastern United States.”
Jeanine Davis, PhD
Associate Professor and Extension Specialist
Department of Horticultural Science
North Carolina State University
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