Herbalism 101 and Diversifying with Medicinal Plants in California

https://youtu.be/2KqvsW_XzgA?si=Au_F7KgiRnCjEGIv

In this nutshell talk, Alaina Ring provides a high-level overview of herbalism basics, including information on how to harvest, dry, process, and market herbs in California. She highlights key species and their medicinal applications, discusses value-added processing best practices, and provides an overview of the regulatory landscape for herbal products in the U.S.

Alaina is a research fellow with the USDA National Agroforestry Center where she addresses plant production challenges that limit plant supply for agroforestry, reforestation, and restoration. Prior to working with NAC, she was a graduate research assistant at University of Maine where she studied barriers to scaling up production of plant material for agroforestry systems. She also has been an herbalist for many years.