I moved my Nigra from a pot to in ground in January. None the less it’s given me dozens of juicy fruits. The fruits are pretty big and the plant may be over watered. It’s hard to get the water right on a newly planted tree right next to established trees where I’m trying to run a water deficit.
The fruit is very good and brix around 23. We’ll see what it does once established.
What variety of Nigra is yours?bb
I just checked the brix of my Issai. They are dead ripe and have been hanging on the bush for a few weeks. Nobody is eating them anymore. They were 16 brix. They are not nearly as good as the wild mulberries I ate as a kid.
For reference, i have some store bought blackberries from Mexico that were in the fringe. They tasted way better and sweeter and were 19 brix.
It’s the Persian Fruiting mulberry from Burnt Ridge. I had a Noir of Spain in the same pot last yr. I couldn’t tell the plants or fruit apart. This one may take off next yr but so far it’s low vigor. It has set a lot of fruit for it’s size. My only complaints are it’s hard to tell when the fruit is fully ripe, the fruit is hidden under the leaves, and the bloody mess they make picking them. But no question this is the worlds best tasting mulberry.
I never have checked my blackberries. Blackberries are much easier to grow and harvest but the Nigra definitely tastes better than any blackberry I’ve grown…
My M. nigra are not ripe yet, maybe in a week or two. Hope I can protect them from ants and birds.
Your Persian looks like my Noire de Spain and Black Beauty. Strong brix reading. I heard nigra wouldn’t live or fruit in S. Louisiana but so far they are doing ok. This is Black Beauty.
Nice tree. I like that graft union. Keep up the good work.
Re:vigor, I grafted a Persian to Russian Alba mulberry 2 months ago and it has grown maybe 2 inches. Meanwhile the Pakistan I also grafted around the same time grew 2 feet.
Fortunately I do have a Black Beauty Nigra that does have a fair bit of fruit. It won’t ripen before late July.
maybe blackberry purists will disagree, but i concur with the above statement.
as for brix, have been busy with the refractometer testing all other fruits but for some reason never bothered with nigra mulbs. I guess didn’t feel i needed to due to the punch it packs as soon as i pop it in my mouth. Couldn’t find our refracto, am afraid may left it on the ground and now concealed under dried jujube and mulberry leaves…
in some years, that is pretty much the same growth we get here, and we’ve been growing black mulbs a long time. But as long as the trees have more nodes per unit length of stem, the production will be denser, easier to harvest(since won’t grow too tall), and the bush-trees will be more manageable and easier to drape a bird net on.
as of now your mulb seems ok as the foliage did not seem to increase in size, and the interstems on the new growth don’t appear to have lengthened considerably. And yes, it does benefit from water deficit to encourage compact growth, which happens to be a given here(sometimes dangerously a deficit) in las vegas and without me even trying. What appears to be slow growth here is actually not too bad as long as the interstems are kept short(more buds relative to size of tree, since it will be at the buds where berries will grow from next year)
Excuse my ignorance but what does brix number mean? Thanks
I just bought a Morus Nigra and a Cokuso and some one give me a Paquistaní (I think that’s the name ?). Would see if they do good on the east coast.
Its a measurement of the amount of sugars in the fruit. It can be measured with a simple refractomerer. For any given fruit higher brix means sweeter fruit. But you cant necessarily say that 20 brix from one variety of fruit will taste sweeter than 20 brix from a different variety. Some fruits have a sour component that will make the brix number seem low. For example, a 16 brix watermelon will taste much sweeter to me than a 16 brix nectarine. Simply because watermelon has no sour component but a nectarine can.
Thank you so much for the information!
