Ginger is a perennial root herbaceous plant. Its rhizome is fleshy, succulent, flat and it tastes of fragrant and spicy.

Ginger's cultivation in our country is so early and widely distributed. Lots of famous producing areas are formed at present. Viewing from the range of the whole country, it mainly distributed in Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hubei and other provinces. The famous national varieties of ginger are Zaoyang ginger from Hubei, Zunyi white ginger from Guizhou, Yuxi yellow ginger from Yunan, Hanzhong ginger from Shanxi, Jianwei ginger from Sichuan and Dandong ginger from Liaoning province. Viewing from the range of world, ginger is mostly distributed in Asia, especially in China, India, Malaysia, Philippines and Burma.

The part of ginger which can be used for food and medical is rhizome. It contains many nutritional components, such as, carbohydrate, protein, many kinds of vitamins, minerals, gingerol, shogaol and so on. Ginger is a good Chinese medical material as well. It can inhibit the abnormal ferment in intestine, urge the evacuating of gas, accelerate the circulation of blood, it also has the effects of warming, sweating, stop hiccupiing and dettoxicating. It can be used as the guiding drug for promoting digestion, soothing vomit, excluding cold, preventing sunstroke and sweating.

There are many ways for storage fo gingers, but the common ways are basement storage and indoor storage:

a. Basement: Before the first frosting (midwinter), when the leaves of gingers are turned yellow, then reaped them back after the maturity, dry flat on the ground for 8-12 hours, 15cm for thickness. Remove the sludge and the broken positions and put them under the sun for insolating 1-2 days, then dip in the carbendazol wettable powder which capacity is 5% per 4‰ for an hour, then fish them out and dry them (or spray on gingers by the zineb liquid which capacity is 1.25‰), after that, put them into the basement which is on a high elevation, well-drained and sunlit ( please pay attention to the sterilization and the humiture before storing). The gingers must be handle gently, pile layeredly and ensure there is a spacing among them, the height ask for 1 meter, then covered them by the humid sandy soil, thickness for 30cm. When the daily mean temperature was below 5℃, seal up the entrance to the basement, check it and renew the soil termly.

b. Indoor: Firstly, choose a room which is shady and ventilated, then pave a layer of gravels (sizes like your fists) on the ground and covered the gravels by clean fine sand for 6-8cm, then put the gingers which were selected and sterilized on the sand orderly, one layer of sand after one layer of gingers, 5-6 layers in all, then inclose the edge by bricks and covered a straw mat on it, so as to keep the sand humid. This way can store the gingers more than half a year.