2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Ginkgo biloba has been used for thousands of years in the oriental countries in medicine and food. For the North America, ginkgo is considered to be one of the best climatically adaptive species. The species is highly resistant to disease, stress and pests. However, female ginkgo trees may be considered undesirable due to the strong odor of the fleshy seed. In some cases mature female ginkgo trees have been removed for this reason alone. Fortunately, there is growing local interest in assessing ginkgo seed as a valuable new crop. The worldwide market for ginkgo products is approximately 3 billion dollars annually. The majority of the ginkgo market resides in Asian countries; however, there is considerable demand in the United States which is met by importing ginkgo products from overseas. Currently, there are no locally grown sources of ginkgo available in Minnesota. We work on assessing the potential production, harvest, and processing of urban produced ginkgo seeds for sale to local and regional markets. The outcome of which will generate new income in communities with existing ginkgo trees as well as help in preserving this valuable component of the urban forest. In addition, we report our findings regarding the safe uses of urban produced ginkgo nuts, especially the measurement results of heavy metal and ginkgotoxin levels in the ginkgo nuts collected from different locations in Twin-Cities of Minnesota.