I am based in London, UK and have a small orchard here and another in Poland (thanks EU!). In general I am quite good in growing fruit trees/fruits specialising in plums and sweet/duke/sour cherries. I have done thousands of grafts of this type of fruits and wanted to try something new. Hence mulberries. My zone is i 7a in Poland and 9 in London.
I have been to the local park hundreds of time and just two months ago discovered an ancient mulberry tree, from the London mulberry survey I have learned this is morus nigra. Just now I can see this 400 year old tree is pushing thousands upon thousands of fruits. I have a friend in Bulgaria whom I met via facebook grafting group and he sent me scions of three nigra and one alba. Put them in sand and waited and waited. Apparently there should be about 50% chance of rooting but for me it was 0%. All failed. I have never ever rooted any hardwood cutting but had a lot of success with green ones. Hundreds of rootstocks rooted that way. So I have accepted my failure and wanted to ask you guys for advice: what shall be my protocol - shall I buy morus alba seedlings in fall and graft scions on it (provided this guy wants to send them to me again) or shall I take some cuttings from the park in summer root them and try grafting in spring on these rooted plants. What would be your suggestion? Can alba be grafted onto nigra? I know vice versa is possible. Are there special precautions when grafting morus nigra/alba? I have heard there are some sap leak problems like with walnuts. Is this right?
Would someone from Europe or US be willing to swap some valuable mulberry scions in winter? Obviously I cannot offer any mulberries yet but have plenty of other fruits on offer: apples, pears, cherries, plums, etc.
This guy from Bulgaria has around 30 different local selections, apparently some of them quite hardy, some are not. But I guess it is worth trying.
Morus nigra is very difficult to root. It is also very difficult to grow from seed. Seeds will germinate, but the survival rate dims with the years so that by year five, it is close to 0, at least in zone 10b Florida. That is why it is generally grafted onto an alba rootstock. Morus alba is easier to root. If you’re just starting with mulberries, it is possible to find grafted plants from local nurseries. Then over time, you’ll see which varieties do best in your climate and you’ll be able to propagate from the ones you have.
Yes, of course buying in nurseries it is the easiest option. But there are very few nurseries in the UK which sell mulberries, only three cultivars are available here. For that reason I wanted to get something from other people and try it out. Green cuttings shall be fine for rooting, right?
Hi @Lex, i have lots of mulberry trees cultivars. I too am based in Europe and was in the UK for lots of years.
In the UK you can get more varieties than you think…
. The ones i got in the Uk
NIgra
Nigra AGM
Nigra King James I / Chelsea
Nigra Jerusalem
Pakistan/Giant Fruit Mulberry
Wellington
Regular white fruit Alba
weeping/Pendula fruiting cultivar
Charlotte Russe
And then all my other cultivars came from nurseries in Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Germany
Also got some USA scions of other cultivars that i either rooted or grafted
But if you really wanna get them in the UK the list i gave.you is available in some nurseries - its where i bought them myself.
Regards
Have you considered air layering? You might have to be a bit clandestine considering the location in a public park, but if you pick a small branch you could use a pretty small clump of peat moss. You could probably pick a spot that is hidden enough that no one would see.
Hi,
I’m also in europe and have Wellington, Collier and Mojo Berry so far. I grafted them to all to M. alba seedlings and never tried rooting them. I think you could still get some seed (from ebay or something) and grow some seedlings to a graftable size for next spring. They grow surprisingly fast. I have a Wellington tree that started as a seed in early 2018, got grafted in 2019 and is now over 2 m tall and already bears some fruit.
here are my 2cents on the topic. I am growing some mulberry in europe too.
Right now I have 2 hardwood cuttings of morus nigra in a rooting bed (medium is sharp sand). That was all I had spare from my young trees. Will know in about a month if it worked. I dont hold my breath cause in the last 2 years I had lots of failure trying to root hardwood cuttings of morus nigra. It is -besides grafting- the recommended method by Alan Toogood in the handbook of plant propagation though.
In 2018 I had some success rooting softwood cuttings of morus nigra. I thought I solved the problem but to my suprise I wasn’t able to repeat that success in 2019. I will try rooting softwood cuttings again this year.
I will also try to airlayer morus nigra. Right now I allow my tree to put on some leaves before I try to layer it.
In UK nurseries I often saw morus nigra sold on their own roots. You could also try to ask some questions about their methods there, if you see the chance to do so. I did once. But the owner couldn’t answer my question since he did not propagate them himself but bought his plants wholesale.
Grafting morus nigra to alba should work fine. That said, I only had reasonable success with summer grafting. Actually I am not a novice grafter. But when grafting morus nigra I still struggle bigtime to achieve reasonable success rates. My spring grafts look like a failure again…
I will report back as soon as I discovered my go to method propagating morus nigra. If you happen to gather more information, I am interested.
I’ve read that that there are nematode issues in Florida that affect mulberry trees. Many varieties need to be grafted on resistant varieties. Same for figs, which are related.
thanks a lot for your replies, guys. I cannot do any air layering since the tree is actually right in the middle of quite busy park: Lesnes Abbey | Morus Londinium IT is really pretty and magnificent. I would be spotted right away. The only chance is softwood or hardwood cuttings. I have tried hardwood cuttings, does not really work what well - I have tried about 100 cuttings, non have taken. I can try softwood cuttings in the summer, probably June or something. Thn perhaps grafting, if it works. This dude from Bulgaria highly recommends it and says it is much better than budding in summer.
@Carld,
Could you please tell me where to look for mulberries in the UK? There is something called Wellington, which in fact is not the same as Wellington in the US (I have heard), so I am not sure about the quality. There is King James I, not sure about the quality of the fruit either. And Cherlsea of course, but I am not sure what the quality of the fruit is either. Anny recommendations?
@carot
I guess professional nurseries use in vitro propagated plants. From one bud you can create millions of identical plants in one year. But this of course requires a bit more aparatus and knowledge.
I’m well aware of nematodes affecting figs. Been dealing with that very issue. Wasn’t aware that mulberries are also affected. Why not, they’re close cousins. I’ve had no problems with Morus macroura Pakistan, Morus alba, and Morus nigra grafted on alba. Morris nigra seedlings have consistently failed for me. Of 40 seedlings I’ve grown from seed over the last decade, I have only one survivor, and it looks measly.
I’ve read about it on the floridafruitgeek blog. Great stuff. The author Craig Hepworth has faced nematode issues on figs and mulberries and currently has a project ongoing to find a nematode-resistant Ficus rootstock for Florida.
You or Craig Hepworth could be right. It could be nematodes causing the slow decline and ultimately the death of my Morus nigra mulberry seedlings. If I have the energy in the future, I will start a new batch of seedlings in pots of sterilized soil, grow them to a graftable size, then graft them onto a nematode resistant mulberry such as the Everbearing mulberry that grows well in Florida and reproduces very easily from cuttings, just to see if we can get new cultivars of M. nigra. These are seeds from Lebanon from trees that are known to me. So many projects, so little time…
Yeah that sucks, at least you have some options! Many mulberries are from Florida, well found in Florida.
I have nigra seedlings from Bulgaria (growing in zone 6b) The Tsarigradska mulberry. I can’t replace them, so if they die, that’s it. Probbaly the only example in the USA. This is one hardy nigra! Leaves are almost open. When young it had spade leaves, but the last two years all finger leaves.
