orphee said:

thank you. i saw a vid on IG last week about sassafras, the guy must've read that article.

i totally forgot about it until i ran into a few of them early this week, next thing you know i got roots in my dehydrator.

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Welcome

Keep us posted on your endevour 

Walt.JS3 said:

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Gave this young one a new home today. Any tips on root development or general care taking are welcomed and appreciated. Never jad an experience with MDA so I'm looking forward to the end result of this process. Hoping to go back for some more little guys soon for gifting or trading.

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That’s a great looking addition to the garden sass is one of my fav plants to grow

In all honesty, it will be a very long time before you could utilize this young plants roots, for any sort of a bark harvest… especially considering the amount necessary for a steam distillation to produce enough oil needed for any sort of synthesis that is worth your time. With that being said, I still encourage you to grow and love that little plant! I bought a small sass tree many years ago, with the same aspirations you have. I was also steam distilling bark that was purchased from various retailers at the same time. Sadly the yielding oil from the bark (per distillation) is not that much. It’s a process where you’ll need to do many runs to pool up any reasonable quantity. It’s still fun to do though and I learned a lot from all this.

But if oil is the route you want to zero in on, research Hoja Santa. The white flowers of the mature plants are loaded with oils that are very aromatic… with the name of the plant being dubbed ‘rootbeer tree.’ It doesn’t have as much safrole concentration as sass, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at… it also grows much faster than sass and harvesting it’s flowers is a lot more gentle (environmentally speaking) than digging up roots from established tree… sometimes injuring and even killing off the plants. Hoja grows faster, thrives in rough and neglected environments, spreads through suckers (which can be slightly invasive so please be aware of this), and several distillations can be done in a growing season. So even though the yielding concentration is lower, the amount of recovered oil is higher… which would translate into an equal or higher % safrole recovery between the two species.

As for growing, try not to over water it. It doesn’t like to have wet feet. Other than that, they aren’t really too picky. they seem to be really tolerant to the cold temps too

Soloist said:

Sassafras is everywhere around me. They smell sooooooo goooooddd . Kinda like fruit loops.

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Same here,  and yes,  fruit loops is what I though as well 

dp he said:

Fuck yeah I love some good sassafras tea in the spring time! Found a mother tree. It's mature and full of safrole.

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lillFish said:

dp he said:

Fuck yeah I love some good sassafras tea in the spring time! Found a mother tree. It's mature and full of safrole.

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I found a ton of sassafras trees on my walks. I am going to bring compost and some clippers to feed the tree & cut down ivy vines and in return, will harvest some branches and possibly a small piece of fresh root. I am SO ready for fall you guys. In the southeast, it's been constantly hot and HUMID, worse than any year I can remember. It's usually an up and down pattern, but not this year.

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Coolio,  and yes,  I feel you! I too am in the Southeast,  and man this heat/humidity is the worst it's ever been here. Hang in there though,  fall will be here before we know it!

_Lucid_ said:

I maintain a small sassafras Grove in my backyard, each spring I cut back the largest 3rd of the poles to use as tripods to grow things like beans and peas.  Small Doe born back there this past spring has made it her little hiddy hole, half the time I go back there on a hot day, she's laying in the middle munching on leaves.  They love tender young sassafras shoots and leaves.  One day I'd like to make a batch of authentic root bear as well as tap my sweet birch to make birch beer one day.

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That is bad ass man 

On  side note,  I found a sassafras tree that sprouted in my ornamental grass

What are the chances!

Lipa Kreepa said:

Nice find on that sass in the grass! It might mean that there’s a other one around there, that r at one time there was. I know they grow from suckers… but maybe it’s from seeds my tree has never bloomed, so idk how the seeds get around. Have you scanned the area for any mature, sassy ladies?

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Sass in the grass,  haha,  classic 

There are no sassafras trees in my yard or the neighbors yards,  so,  It must have come from a bird. The local park is loaded with mature sassafras trees, so I'm thinking that a bird my have visited there before coming to my house. the park is only a few blocks from my house too. It's growing so close to my house that I might not be able to let it grow there for long,  sadly.

Lipa Kreepa said:

yeppp. I just realized that OP’s post was 5+ years old and I already posted a few years ago on the first page But screw it, I’m Going to leave this info up here anyhow, in case any future likeminded folks are curious about this sort of thang!

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orphee said:

wow...

i'm told they're not that easy to propagate... that's prime forage real estate there, no human intervention needed.

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Well,  I think if I can dig up some babies I should be all good.

Yeah,  that's actually at a local park here. They have cut down everything but this last little patch of woods. Hopefully it will be spared.

I mean,  who the hell wants to go to a park devoid of nature and trees???  It really pisses me off badly 

orphee said:

i read this one recipe where they said the young shoots are preferable for fresh tea making. maybe it's about handling, i used my full size pruners to chop down half an inch diameter root...

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