Getting a few of these pak Pakistani mulberries a.day now. Sweeter than the native ones, better texture, almost a bite compared to a melting juice.bomb.
4 Likes
I posted a big complaint about my oldest mulberry (likely rubra+alba cross) not flowering or fruiting. last fall we had a sharp early freeze that killed the tips of every tree back about 6 inches. I was planning to cut off the dead wood at the tip on this tree and possibly top work it in resignation, when I noticed it’s fruiting. FINALLY. a handful on each branch.
maybe I just need to be meaner to this thing.
4 Likes
For folks growing mulberries in rural areas (or even urban areas like me) - how do you keep groundhogs from destroying them?!!
That’s mostly rhetorical, but not entirely.
I have groundhogs that completely strip every mulberry leaf in sight. They turned a wild one into a veritable bonsai. I’m trying to grow 2 gerardi and they are hellbent on annihilating them.
Not sure it’s worth growing them between this and the birds.
#venting
1 Like
I hear they’re pretty tasty. The groundhogs that is…
2 Likes
I’ve had this problem too. For years, groundhogs burrowed under a fence to get to three Gerardi bushes. They’d go to work stripping every leaf they could reach. And please note, they would climb the trees to get to upper branches. Usually this led to broken branches. In one cases, the tree broke at the graft.
I trap them and shoot them. If I see one outside the trap, I’ll try to “spot and stalk.” For two seasons in a row, I got 12. You can’t grow dwarf mulberries with 12 woodchucks around.
3 Likes
That I’ve not seen. Funny thing is I have a good number of woodchucks around, but they seldom seem to bother much. I’ve actually shot a few prophylactically, not having seen them do any damage. There was one I would often see come up and munch grass in front of the house, just 200 ft or so from the vegetable garden! I never would have thought of them climbing a mulberry tree, though I have raccoons that do that. This year, instead of throwing rocks at them, I think I may throw some lead their way. Then again, I have 4 Illinois everbearing, 3 Oscar’s, 3 Kokuso, and 2 Gerardi dwarf,with many more new grafted varieties ready to set out, so maybe I can afford to lose a few…
Oh yes. I need to post a pic. I was so proud of my big 4 foot high chicken wire cage, but they’ve ripped branches off despite this.
I’ve trapped and relocated many groundhogs. Within a month or so, another takes its place.
I don’t think their homing abilities are good enough but the lite research I’ve attempted on that has been inconclusive.
1 Like
The most successful way I have found to eliminate ground hogs is to put smoke bombs in their holes after chasing them home.
Burry entrance , check to see if it has been reopened.
1 Like
We used to live at a house with a peach tree 25’ from the kitchen window. One hot dry summer, my wife went to the sink and saw a woodchuck 3-4’ up the tree, eating peaches. Probably needed the water.
A few years ago, we were visiting some friends who had a weedy mulberry in the back yard. It had a crotch at abound 5’. Drinking wine in my friend’s back deck, I notice a woodchuck sitting in the crotch calmly stripping leaves and eating them.
I have not actually seen woodchucks strip my Gerardi’s. But the trees are fenced. I have no other explanation.
1 Like
Makes sense. Mulberry leaves are exceptionally good fodder. I read recently they can approach 30% protein by dry weight, which is about on par with soy. I’m guessing that the woodchucks here have enough to munch on that climbing my mulberries hasn’t occurred to them, but who knows. In spring though when the buds are starting to swell, squirrels and chipmunks love to run along the branches eating every bud off. I’ve had some newly grafted mulberries fairly decimated once or twice that way.
1 Like
I had an entire community pot of alleged nigra seedlings get devoured a few weeks ago and never saw the culprit. They were on their 3-5th leaves post-cotyledon, and looked like toothpicks afterwards. I suspected a mouse or maybe some kind of large insect.
Rabbit?
1 Like
It’s possible, though I’ve never seen one in my yard. I do sometimes see them in other parts of the neighborhood. I’m surrounded by yards full of dogs and cats, and the rabbits seem to steer clear of our block.
my rubra is putting on a few inches of growth every few days. looking like it’ll be as tall as me by end of summer which is pretty good for a little sucker plant.
the other rubra/black/alba mix I planted hasn’t broken dormancy at all, it’s still barely showing buds. it’s on the other end of my property from a pear tree acting the same way! no idea what to do about either one. it was a bare root about 4 feet tall when I put in, back in late March.
the tree I had that never fruited before now has a handful on it, I’m glad. it was on the kill list if it didn’t show signs of producing soon.
wish my climate let me grow the long ones or some of the varieties you all have
2 Likes
My Silk Hope graft 3 feet up on the rootstock was destroyed by a ground hog. My only named variety is Illinois Everbearing, which I would like very well if only it were not so susceptible to mulberry popcorn disease.
My illinois everbearing on the right. A lot smaller than I was expecting. On the left is what the wild seedling mulberries look like around my place, about the same size, which surprised me. Flavor is a little sweeter but not really much better than the wild ones here, there both good. I planted my tree 3 years ago and its now close to 8ft, so its younger hopefully its berries are larger next year. I might order another one just to make sure I got the real deal.
2 Likes
I agree IE is on the small side. My native ones are smaller than yours though so it doesn’t seem as small relatively.
My problem with IE was the “E” part, it spread out the crop too much and the birds got nearly all of them as it was a month-long smorgasbord. This spring I replaced it with Kokuso which is now the only mulberry I have. Kokuso are just as tasty as IE if you let them get 100% ripe, and are about twice as big. But mainly they ripen in a narrower window so I get most of the fruits.
2 Likes
You had me sold, looks like they aren’t quite hardy enough for me in zone 4b though. I have plenty of room for more mulberry trees, I plan on just planting them around the property, not in what I consider my designated orchard with most everything else.