Yesterday I went out and removed a rootstock sucker from my potted Gerardi mulberry. I was very excited because this was its second year and it was already 4’ tall and had some fruit set. I briefly considered letting the rootstock sucker grow out a bit because it also had surprisingly decent amount of fruit set but I figured the fruit quality would be terrible and just pruned it off.
I really didn’t want the root stock sucker to come back (I could tell it had also grown last year) so I cut it as flush to the branch collar as I could. That’s when I noticed the missing graft union between the rootstock and the scion. Turns out that I have been growing out the root stock for 2 years and pruning out the Gerardi scion that had been desperately trying to grow back.