Mulberries no work fruit

[murky]

Clark, thank you for reminding us how good mulberries can be!

I have a 5 year old Illinois Everbearing. This year looks like a great crop. I like standing by the tree eating the berries immediately after picking them!

When do they ripen here? I’d love to taste them. I have a couple of sad morus nigra cultivars and have been debating putting in an Illinois Everbearing. I’d planted a Silk Hope because I’d heard it was very similar to, but better than IE, but it succumbed after being eaten by deer twice.

[Bear_with_me]

“When do they ripen here?”
Murky, I think mid to late June, until Sept. That is for Illinois Everbearing. This photo is from July last year.

“I’d love to taste them.”
I can help you with that.

[murky]

Excellent, thank you.

Are they abuzz with Spotted Wing Drosophila beginning in August?

[Bear_with_me]

No insects on them here. At least, as far as I know. I do have to net the tree because birds love them.

[alan]

IEB is a forage tree for me. I wouldn’t think of netting them from birds, I can still eat my fill when I feel like them, but I can see how those who use them as a fruit staple would need to. Seems as though a variety that ripens its fruit in a shorter window would make more sense for that, though.

They are also my trees for thinning out the squirrels before other fruit is attractive. Never bothers me to launch shotgun pellets into such a junk tree as a mulberry.

[clarkinks]

Kansas mulberries started ripening this week. Late May- July is the red mulberries season but the whites are still a month away.

[tinaragold]

wow, such a generous berry.

[39thparallel]

Red Mulberries are so common here they are thought of as a Junk tree. The tend to take over unmanaged patches of land and grow very large. They make good fence post and are great for wild life. I want to try making mulberry wine and jam this year. I disagree about being insect free. If you soak the berries in water, you see a disgusting amount of bugs come to the surface. they also have seeping sap from borers and the bag worms love them.

Have have started to graft over a few Red Mulberries with David Smith Everbearing and will try Weeping Mulberry ornamental this year. What are the chances of a JuJube graft taking on Red mulberry?

[jujubemulberry]

What are the chances of a JuJube graft taking on Red mulberry?

haven’t tried it before. They may not be closely related, but they are the closest of juju relatives outside of the juju family, so never say never!

[jimwiehe]

Does a Kokuso mulberry need to be grafted? or can it be rooted and planted in 5B?

[clarkinks]

Grafting it should work fine but wait until the rootstock is pushing growth. Never tried to root one before.

[strudeldog]

Kokuso #20 roots pretty easy compared to some Mulberry. I have assumed that the Kokuso #20 offered by USDA UC Davis is the Kokuso offered by nurseries, but the # 20 has always made we wonder. Does anyone know if they are the same? As far as 5b I could not say personally but a couple nurseries list it to zone 5 and very hardy.

[jimwiehe]

thanks for your input

[BobVance]

I can recommend one to NOT get- Gerardi Dwarf. The fruit is pretty blah. It isn’t bad tasting, just not all that flavorful- I’ve had wild ones which tasted better. But, I can say that it really is dwarf, maybe 5’ tall, in year #5.

I also have two relatively young Oscar and Kokuso in an area that eventually won’t support mulberries (or at least without heavy pruning). Once I’ve had a chance to try them this year, I’ll decide which one should be grafted over the Gerardi. I’ll be interested to see if it continues to be dwarfing.

I grafted a bunch of mulberries onto the Geraldi Dwarf this spring. I can report definitively that GD doesn’t dwarf the variety grafted on. While the GD is 5’ tall after 5+ years, there are at least 3 grafts which have grown more than that this year.

Kokuso Graft- you can see the temflex tape near the bottom of the pic. It was hanging loosely on the graft and I knocked it off for the pic.

[danzeb]

I grafted a bunch of mulberries onto the Geraldi Dwarf this spring. I can report definitively that GD doesn’t dwarf the variety grafted on.

I was wondering about that and you answered the question. Now I wonder if it would reduce vigor after a few years. I’d love to find a way to slow down Illinois Everbearing. After an early summer pruning it still grew an additional 8 ft. I don’t know if there are any slow growing quality mulberries that can handle 0 degrees.

[tonyOmahaz5]

I found this wild mulberry tree at the corner of my lot because the birds are going crazy over it. I went over to taste the fruits and I was supprized how sweet and tasty they were.

Tony

[UnderDawgAl]

This past weekend, my kids and I put a drop cloth under our wild mulberry tree and shook the limbs. It rained mulberries!

I’ve now got about a gallon or so of them in the fridge. This weekend I plan to make mulberry syrup!

[KYWeaver]

Those of you who cook with your mulberries, how do you deal with the stems that stay on the fruit? I can’t imagine picking them off one by one.

[clarkinks]

We eat the stems right along with the fruit.

[warmwxrules]

They look so much like a blackberry…very nice for a wild tree.

I’ve always thought of them as a weed tree…they pop up in my yard every year and grow like a weed. There are some large mulberries not far from my house…i’ll have to go investigate the berry quality.