The Many Gifts Of The Goji

The goji berry plant (Lycium barbarum, Lycium chinense and the lesser known Lycium ruthenicum), also known as a wolfberry (gouqizi, 枸杞) in Chinese, is a scrambling deciduous shrub with long, sparsely spiny weeping branches. It’s a Lycium (boxthorn) species that is a member of the Solanaceae (nightshade or tomato) plant family. It is native to regions of mainland East and Southeast Asia (including China, Mongolia and Tibet in the Himalayas).

Tibetan Goji Berry (Lycium barbarum) have also now been naturlized (and grow wild without human assistance in several States in the US (including but not limited to Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Texas and Missouri). This is apparently a result of Chinese transcontinental railroad workers living in those (and surrounding) states over 160 years ago. Long used for both food and medicine in China, wolfberries were a part of the railroad workers diet (and some would have inevitably been dropped or perhaps cultivated along the way).

Dr. Donald Daugs, who transplant some of the naturalized Goji berries found growing wild in Utah into his garden in Cache County, and identified the West Desert plants. These plants not only thrived, but also produced heavy fruit crops. Eight years of research has resulted in a thriving wolfberry nursery business and prospects for a major new low impact-high income crop for farmers (or gardeners looking to embrace food sovereignty) desiring to diversify or add a new crop component to their farm.