I have a few different kinds or what appears to me to be different kinds, growing wild about. Some fruit some don’t (female / male). This is one of them, any ideas what variety this is? I was planning on air laying the females and put them in a row with a few males. I do know one thing they grow like crazy and should be very easy to care for.
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Interesting find today. A mulberry growing on the edge of the local Walmart parking lot. You just don’t see them around my parts very often, this one must be tough. This is actually the first mulberry I’ve ever tasted! I do have a couple cultivars planted but they haven’t fruited yet. It tasted ok…very sweet with little acid (I actually think it would be tastier with a little more acid) but again don’t have anything to compare it to.
I snapped a couple quick pics but had my 4 year old with me and couldn’t take the time I would have liked to really nerd out. Pretty cool non the less.
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good find. makes you wonder if its planted or not. near me, Ive noticed the feral albas can be found here and there. the closer you are to asphalt, the closer you probably are to one. there are a couple of fruit on that one, arent there?
those type of albas root really easily IME. I was just grafting today onto some cuttings I rooted while grafting a bunch of potted rootstock a couple of months ago. They in turn were the prunings of last year’s rootstocks. Most albas will root in as little as a couple of weeks from semi-hardwood. I stripped the tops off of these ones before grafting them and stuck the prunings, naturally
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It is completely covered in fruit. Pretty impressive actually. I had considered it being planted, it could be, but it is in a really odd spot in the tree line on the other side of the guardrail. It has half a dozen trunks and is completely untended.
Funnily enough alba is actually now illegal to propagate/sell in Maine. I do have a couple dozen seedlings I started last year as rootstock for my own use.
Correction: alba is on the “watch list” see link below.
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Thats absurd, IMO
I know Mass has blacklisted species, including black locust, but didnt think Maine would ever do something of the sort.
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I guess it’s technically on the watch list
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Guess youll have to let the berries fall on the ground and give away the resultant seedlings then, eh?
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thats quite a list! lets just say they might not like to see what Im growing here.
now if they could just manage to ban shitty human ecology! like the spot next to walmart
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So help me rate these mulberries.
I’m going to move Silk Hope to where I currently have Pakistan, I think Silk Hope is producing fruit and I can pick the fruit better from this location. I’m short on space. I did like Florida Giant, but now I just order a White Ivory and another Pakistan and they are just small sticks. I originally thought the other Pakistan died. But I don’t have space for Florida Giant, should I graft Florida Giant to Silk Hope?
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I recently got Dwarf Everbearing and Thai Dwarf cuttings. The former are growing great. The latter refuse to break bud. I thought they were dead until I lifted them and saw a few small but healthy roots. It’s been a while since then (though they’re still alive), and to avoid losing them, I dipped their roots in rooting hormone and fertilized with 20-20. Is there anything else I can do?
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I planted these in ground recently. A root grafted IL everbearing and a Trader I bought. Roots had reached the bottom of the pot. So it was time to plant.
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I would think deer could reach their snouts through that fence, Hunter.
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@northwoodswis4 … no doubt they could.
That is a old concrete wire tomato cage my dad made 30 years ago. He used it… and I am still using it.
One more thing I need to get done… i know.
Thanks
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My Gerardi graft was nearly defoliated. I thought maybe deer got to it, but upon closer inspection it looks like leafhoppers. Damage wasn’t too bad on any of the other mulberry grafts. I put some Sevin dust on it tonight.
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Aren’t they sap-sucking insects, not leaf-eating? Or do some leafhoppers do both? Maybe both deer and leafhoppers like the mulberry.
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I think you’re right. It must be multiple culprits that defoliated my Gerardi. The leafhoppers were all over a few of them though. I don’t think it was deer but its possible. I was a little late in catching it.
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anyone growing Varaha from Peaceful Heritage Nursery?
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I don’t have Varaha yet… but looking at Blake’s mulberry video tour, I’m pretty certain that it is not pure M.rubra, based on leaf morphology and fruiting pattern (multiple fruits at each node). Most likely a rubraXalba hybrid… but it looks good, regardless of genetics. Will be interesting to see what the genetic analysis reveals.
Having had adult children living in The Highlands area of Louisville (where Varaha originated) for a number of years, I would be surprised at someone finding a pure rubra there unless it was an very very very old tree… there’s a trashy alba seedling(s) in every untended fenceline or neglected flower bed or hedge in that part of town.
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