Hello everyone,
Does anyone have any experience with David Smith Everbearing Mulberries? There have been a couple of mentions on this site recommending it but nobody talks about how long it actually bears fruit or the size and taste of the fruit. I would love any and all information on this variety as the only real information I can find online is from planting justice which states “Incredibly heavy production of tasty medium sized black fruit over a very long season. Compact super hardy tree comes from the collection of Richard Fahey in Oxnard, NY. Hardy zones 4-9.”
Thank you!
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Only person I know who’s grown it is Don Compton, up in IN. I bought a piece from Fahey(in Oxford, not Oxnard) many years ago, when I was first starting out (around '96?)… had no success grafting it then, but I’d only done a few apples at that time, so was still quite the newbie.
Suspect it’s quite similar to many of the good M.rubraXalba hybrids. I’d expect a 4-6 week bearing season. ‘Everbearing’ is, imo, a somewhat misleading term… yeah, it’s longer than the 2 week or so period I get from M.rubra, and way longer than the 3 or 4 days that serviceberries last before the birds strip them.
Lawson Dawson, Illinois Everbearing, Silk Hope - and several IE seedlings I’ve grown out - are all heavily-laden and ripening here at this very minute. All are good, with some differences in fruit size/length/flavor, but not enough so that I could do a blindfolded taste test and tell one from another.
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Thank you for the information! I was quite disappointed at the “everbearing” title that are given to mulberries back when I learned it usually was a 1-2 month bearing season but its still quite improved from some of the wild mulberries I have growing around me.
i had a david smith everbearing the fruits were similar to my IE in terms of size and tasting compared to geradi dwarf or dearf everbearing.
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Is it fair to assume you prefer the taste of IE over gerardi?
yes correct IE had better flavor but wasnt as productive as GD
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Do your David Smith Everbearing Mulberry actually stay relatively compact?
i would say david smith mulberry the tree does stay little smaller than IE.