I loved the video on Pruning Mulberry Trees. If I had no deer, I’d follow this plan exactly. Is there a modified approach that incorporates a high head with dense branching above (i.e., pollarding) so that I can keep leaves and fruits above 6’?
Two more questions: (1) Do you protect the harvest from birds? (2) Do you risk severe damage from wind having dense foliage? I’m in a windy site and I find that I have to prune my fruit trees to open up the canopy so a 40-50 mph gust passes through without ripping apart the tree.
Hi! Thanks so much. I’m glad you found it useful. I have some winter pruning video we need to get up and I hope to come full circle next summer when the fruit comes in.
We have deer fencing for the whole orchard yes. Three of the 10 rows are under plastic in the summer right now so they are protected from birds. The remaining 7 are not so I will need a solution for them at some point.
We have high wind gusts of 40mph+ in the autumn, winter, and early spring. But during most of summer winds are mild. Early last fall a few trees with shallow roots didn’t break but went horizontal because of the lateral pressure from wind on the foliage. With this low-to-ground pruning system, I think we’ll be OK but winds can be a real issue during harvest time.
@jrd51 … no fencing here and the deer love my mulberry leaves. They eat all leaves below about 4.5 ft. Not as bad in a good weather year… but in drought like last year they wipe out every leaf below 4.5 ft.
I have Gerardi, Silk Hope, Oscar, Lawson Dawson and Kip Parker so far.
I have grown them all up with single trunk up to about 4 ft… then let them branch out and up.
Doing my best to train them so that most fruiting wood will be in reach from the ground or small step… 8-10 ft tall… and above 4.5 ft (above deer browse).
So far the deer have not bothered mine at all above that 4.5 ft height.
I am going to graft and plant hopefully 3 more mulberrie varieties this spring.
I am hoping to overwhelm the birds… you know… get to the point where they can have all they want and we still get all we want.
What I did with my Gerardi last year was harvest berries just after daybreak. Get to them before the birds do… and they had all night bird free to ripen. Overnight several will ripen as long as you can beat the birds to them the next morning.
Strudledog… mentioned that he did that in his youtube vid of his gerardi.
I do something similar, except my deer stand on hind legs to get foliage up to ~6’. Only the Gerardis that are behind a fence escape the deer. Also, given how deer eat (pinch and pull), I’ve lost branches due to deer stripping leaves.
That’s a great idea. I’ll try it, assuming that I can wake up just after daybreak.
Does anyone recognize the names of these mulberries? I was told they were Ukranian and they might be from UC Davis but the person doesn’t know much more than that.
How long did it take for you to see cuttings of Jan’s best growing leaves and roots?
Here is how I have mine, I planted them about a week ago. They are in 50% peat and 50% perlite, and yesterday I added a heating mat under them, not sure if it will help.
Indoors under heat was 10 days when I first tried this. It was one of the first things I ever propagated. I also used 50% peat and 50% pearlite. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get roots and top growth any day now. I get a high success rate on Jan’s Best with very little effort just watering them outside lol.
I used to water them a bit every 1-2 days. You can tell if they are dry by picking up the pots since peat moss and pearlite weigh almost nothing once dry. Outside I would just hose them down everyday when I watered my plants lol.
LOL. Sounds familiar. Of course, apples are very forgiving. My first season trying bench grafts on dormant apple rootstock, I wanted roughly 15-20 varieties, some on dwarf rootstock, some on semi-dwarf. I grafted 2-3 of each – 50 total. 49 grafts were successful, though I broke one of the successful grafts later. So that gave me 48 trees. Yikes!
I gave a big bunch to a local friend who makes cider, as well as a few trees each to some amateur grower friends. But I still had too many. I ended up sticking trees in places I never intended. I don’t mind if a friend (or the friend’s voles and rabbits) kills them, but I can’t do it myself.
I call it “planning for failure” but my wife complains with strong justification that every little project ends up getting really big. I planted “a few” hot pepper plants last spring and we ended up with ~20 pounds of sriracha.
I can get pictures this summer. I think this varieties was one of the last developed by Oikos tree crops before he went out of business. I think Oikos was well respected though.
My trees are growing very slow. Who knows when I’ll get fruit. They have been in the ground at least 5 years.
(and awesome)