We harvest wild mulberries by shaking limbs over a tarp. But I’ve read that Illinois Everbearing is difficult to harvest this way because it holds onto its berries. Has anyone experienced this?
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Shaking the IE works great for me. They come off just fine when ripe.
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In my limited experience, I find that IE berries hang tighter / longer than some others (e.g., Gerardi). I guess I’d agree that they loosen up eventually, but I tend not to leave them that long for fear of birds and squirrels.
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So far have not been able to beat the birds to them! Few of mine make it to the fully ripe stage on the tree before birds get them. I do see some on the ground but am not sure if the dropper or were picked off.
When picking by hand they seem to hold pretty good.
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Wow, IL Everbearing survives your 3b winters? Mine didnt make it through its second winter
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If it is windy, less ripe mulberries will fall but it looks like a nice system
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I can never harvested IE by shaking the tree. It takes a few years to start growing the berries. By the time it finally start to grow berries, the tree trunk is in a good size. It takes move efforts to shack the tree than just pick each ripe berry off the tree. I don’t think IE berries fall off the tree as easily as other mulberry trees grow in the area. Maybe when it’s very ripe, it may do. but I have never waited long enough for the berries in dead ripe stage. my situation is that either I pick the berries or the birds pick them for me.
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Surprisingly yes. Winter temps of -32 to -34 C. I sometimes see some dieback on last years growth if it was particularly vigorous (10 + feet of shoot growth).
Rootstock is a seedling mulberry grown outside of Montreal.
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