I’ve also wondered if variety makes a difference for mulberries with grafting. I’ve noticed that some seem to root easily and others, like Gerardi, nobody seems to be able to get to root. Given how variable they are for rooting, I wonder if there is variability in how easy/hard they are to graft as well. Good luck with your T-buds.
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I think this is a key point.
My grafts to Russian mulberry rootstock pretty much all succeed barring a few failures due to bad scionwood.
However I top worked a Kokuso to Morus Nigra and a few other varieties. All varieties other than the Nigra have pushed. I suspect the Nigra will eventually fail.
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grafting illni everbearing to wild alba. im going to try a few Riverview as well. Riverview is a pure alba once sold by rolling rivers nursery. mines 7ft but hasn’t fruited for me yet.
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I bark grafted Kokuso and Northrup to this male wild white mulberry this year. They were my first mulberry grafts. I did cut small “slits” in the bark below the grafts to try and help prevent flooding. I have no idea if that was a good idea or not, but the grafts took for the most part. Seemed pretty easy to graft, but maybe I just got lucky.
I have only tried whip/tongue and side grafts on established trees. I’ve had really spotty results. Perhaps I need to try a cleft graft.
I have had nearly 100% takes on potted rootstock. I have done several rounds of grafts this year starting April 1st. Both dormant and actively growing. All grafts were side grafts. My theory is that by heavily pruning the roots to fit into a pot, there’s a drastic decrease of excess sap flow.
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I also had good result root grafting mulberries but the after care was a little difficult and I lost some of them, I presume, due to too much moisture.
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i had a nice Northrop until 2 winters agos. -40 killed it to the ground. now its came back a 5ft by 5ft bush. so much for it bieng z3 hardy. will pick a main leader next spring and prune the rest out or keep 2 and graft 1 to Riverview. do you have wild albas there? ive never seen one around here, even in towns. got mine from cold stream farm 6 years ago. would be a much bigger tree if the snow didnt break most of its branches every year then i came along and hacked it down to 3ft 2 springs ago, to try to graft onto it. its currently becoming a bush as well.
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I tried to graft a Mulberry like that last year. the tree blead for more then a week. It was like a tapped a well. It died down roots and all.
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Nope, no wild mulberries here. The one i grafted this year i brought from my old place. I’m surprised it has survived winters here.
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I have several mulberries that are bird “gifts” (actually hard to get rid of, quite a root system). They are about 1/4" diameter. I am in zone 6A. What would be the best way to graft these next year? (Trying to distill the discussions down to a simple strategy). From the posts it seems that Illinois Ever. is one of the more popular that should do well here. Any (singular) alternative recommendations?
I just splice them using an annual upright shoot and that shoot becomes huge within two years if its at the top of the tree. Best to do 2 or three grafts to make your one takes, but that should do it if you wait about a week after 1st growth to do it. 3 splices will take you less time than one of the grafts I see here and the splice will take off like a rocket, or more accurately like a water sprout.
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I bought 10 Russian Alba Tatarica from Burnt Ridge and they were 1/4"
It is just hard to do bark grafting when they are so small; I grafted them and thought to myself, wow, I just mangled them but they have taken (most of them)
I am 6 of 8 successful (so far and will overwinter them in a heated basement) but bought and planted another 10 albas in the ground and will let them get bigger (mainly because the scion thickness of some of the scions are fat)
All I have ever done have been bark grafts but they are hard on tiny rootstock
Kip Parker
Lawson Dawson
Kokuso
Honeydrops
Veraha
Hartoot
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I had about 75% takes with T-buds in early spring (as soon as rootstocks were starting bud swell), and I did another round of buds (3x) and also small cleft grafts (2x) just a few weeks ago. So far none of those look desiccated, but this is the only one starting to wake up:
That’s “Kaester” (from @ramv) on a Russian alba seedling. The graft I originally did in spring on that rootstock failed, and it sent up like 6 new vigorous shoots, so this time I cleft grafted 2 of those and cut off the rest. I keep rubbing off new shoots while waiting for one of these to take.
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@SteadyStan , this seems like a great way to increase one’s chances if you have extra root material and scion. Those look like pops like people use for figs. I looked at your earlier post showing the grafts before they went into media. Are these whip & tongue? Where did you put the graft line relative to soil? Did you apply bottom heat or just keep them indoors? Any other updates or thoughts? This seems like an excellent idea!
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My successful grafts did really through the summer. I’ll try to take a photo of some of them when I’ll be potting them up. I already gave away my most vigorous plants to friends and family.
I wasn’t too particular with soil level. I plan to burry the graft union to encourage the trees growing on own roots. That may or may not happen for cultivars like Illinois Everbearing that is known to be difficult to root.
For the graft method, I used just a whip without the tongue. Or a cleft graft on some. Whip and tongue can be done but I found that the tongue cut was challenging to do on the root.
I didn’t apply any bottom heat. I placed them into a bucket and covered with plastic bag.
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I had good success grafting Gerardi onto alba rootstock, using cleft grafts.
I’m planning on top-working a small but established tree this spring to add a few new varieties. Seeing the results from @TNHunter, I’m gonna go with bark grafts.
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1 ordered 20 12-18’’ red mulberry off a guy on esty. i may try grafting some of them over to Riverview and illni. everbearing just to see if they take better than grafting to wild alba. barkslip grafted 2 llnis. for me onto some wild alba he had on his property. they are both alive but didn’t do much last year. hopefully they take off this summer.
I grafted Kokuso and Northrup to a wild alba last year. All the Kokuso scions really took off. Some put on over 5’ of growth. The Northrup were much less vigorous, and I only had 2 of 5 scions survive.
That was my first attempt at mulberry grafting.
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the -40 3 winters ago killed my 6 ft. northrup to the ground. it came back vigorously from the roots. hasnt fruited yet. ive never seen a wild alba up here and dont know anyone that grows them either.
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