Mulberry Mixup - One Green World - what do I have?

[TNHunter]

Ok… so I ordered a Illinois Everbearing Mulberry a couple years back from OGW…
it arrived, tagged as IE Mulberry, I planted it… and was expecting IE Mulberry fruit this year.

I have been watching the fruit develop… they went from small green berries, to larger green berries then up sized quite a bit (2 or 3x size) then turned white…

I have been watching them for a week or two after some turned white… and yesterday noticed that some of the ones that had been white a while, started browning, then fell off. Lots were falling off yesterday evening… and I thought - what is going on.

Then today I think I realized what is up…

I tasted of one of those White Mulberries and it was soft, like it was ripe, and quite sweet, but no tartness at all (very little flavor) just mostly sweet, with a very mild if any flavor.

OK… so now I am thinking this was a Mulberry Mixup… and instead of a Illinois Everbearing mulberry… I got a White (sweet only) mulberry.

Rats !! I don’t like the taste at all. That stinks.

I checked the OGW website and they have several white mulberries available including…

Nakita
Pakistan
California
Sweet Lavender
Persian
Bueatiful Day (all include White) in the name and show pics of white or whitish fruit.

But based on their images of leaves, none seemed to match mine.
The leaves in their images seemed to be quite large, roundish, with a slightly pointy tip.

Mine are quite different (see pic below of my leaves and fruit).

Anyone know what Variety of Mulberry this is that I have ?
It is not a Illinois Everbearing - Right ?

Edit/add a bit later… I looked up some IE Mulberry vids on Youtube… and they have the larger roundish heart shaped leaves… not at all what I have.

Thanks

TNHunter

[AaronN]

It is not IE Everbearing.

[Seattlefigs]

i would message them with the photos etc they can identify it correctly and hopefully send you a IE replacement. i have several white mulberries including beautiful day and persian but none of them have that shape leaves you posted.

[TNHunter]

@Seattlefigs - I am off work now and did some more research… learned something about mulberry leaf shapes…

From this site…
https://sites.redlands.edu/trees/species-accounts/whitemulberry/

Leaves: The leaves of the white mulberry tree are generally glossy and thin with alternating lengths and shapes depending on the age of the tree. Young shoots tend to grow leaves up to 12 inches (30 cm) long with deep and detailed lobes. The older shoots however have an average leaf length range between 2 – 6 inches (5 – 15 cm), are not lobed, and are serrated or jagged at the edges.
…

The one in the bottom left of that image looks much like my “evidently white” mulberry leaves… but those are all white mulberry leaves and it seems they vary depending on the tree age or shoot age.

Do you like the taste of your white mulberries ?

Mine taste, a little like milk, with a bit of sugar in it, just sort of bland, but a little sweet.

I watched youtube vids by strudeldog11 and he mentioned how much he liked the flavor of Girardi and Illinois Everbearing — he said they were sweet/tart berries and he liked those, but did not care for the sweet only berries.

I think what I have is a sweet only berry and I agree with strudledog11… I don’t care for it.

I will contact OGW and see what we can work out. Today I would choose a Girardi (which I don’t think they carry), or a Silk Hope… now i know that Silk Hope is supposed to do much better in the South East, than Illinois Everbearing.

And strudledog11 who was bragging on the Girardi… was in Northern GA, and I am in Southern TN… so I expect if it works well for him it might for me too.

Thanks

TNHunter

[Seattlefigs]

here is one of my white mulberries i grow

a beautiful day white mulberry Seattle PNW gardening

i also grow morus alba with leaves shape like top right. so i havent seen any in my white mulberry collection with your leaves so did you see if it was grafted or not? maybe it was grown from morus alba seed. all of mines are grafted varieties. Please keep us posted on how OGW responds im curious of the what variety you got.

[TNHunter]

Your berries and tree bark, looks much like mine, but the leaves are different as you said.

You mentioned sweet… and mine are sweet but just have no flavor.

I am a little overdosed on loganberries right now, which have extreme flavor. I will keep trying the white mulberries but don’t really think those are going to grow on me.

I checked the OGW site and they do not mention anything about their IE Mulberries being grafted and I don’t think mine is, no sign of a graft.

Thanks

[steveb4]

my 5 yr old M alba have leaves like the upper right one in the pic. its only ever had that type of leaf also. im slowly grafting it over to all i.e. you should do the same. probably produce sooner with the large root system.

[TNHunter]

@steveb4 — no experience at grafting.

Is a mulberry a good one to start on ?

I ate a few more of those white mulberries today… not impressed at all… and the fruiting period looks to be very short… maby 2 weeks ??

That stinks. I was expecting a couple months with IE.

I think I would want to graft the whole thing

TNHunter

[steveb4]

i failed getting the grafts to take until i found a tip. mulberries have alot of sap that makes it hard for the graft to take. you need to make several horiziontal cuts into the cambium a inch or so below where your grafting. dont girdle completely. that will allow some of the sap to leak out allowing the graft to take. i did 4 grafts of I.E on my M. alba a few weeks ago and all took with simple cleft grafts.

[steveb4]

how big is your tree? you could cut off everything and do 2 cleft grafts on the trunk if its like 5in or smaller. that way everything that grows will be i.e. i should have did that to mine but i wanted to taste the fruit on it before grafting it all over.

[JesseinMaine]

Bummer! I have had a similar experience with ogw- received a mis IDed plant. They offered me a 10% discount on my next order

[TNHunter]

Jessie… agree this is a bummer.

@steveb4 — below is what it looks like.

Where that first limb goes out to the right there… the trunk diameter is close to 1.5 inch. It is still quite young.

It has a total of 6 branches off the trunk and they are all between 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch in diameter at the base. Some of those branches are a good 6 ft long.

Of course I bought the IE Mulberry (or so I thought) a few years back, before I found this board and signed up. I have read more info on Mulberry’s here and if I could start over, I think I would choose a Silk Hope now, or Girardi…

I have read that IE Mulberry (in the hot south east) suffers much from Pop Corn Disease not sure exactly what that is, but it is a Disease and those are usually not good. And that Silk Hope does not have that problem here and is a very good tasting mulberry. I have researched that on youtube… there are several people on youtube in the SE really bragging on their Silk Hope Mulberry.

If I were to decide to just dig this thing up and get rid of it, and replace it… I would do that with a Girardi or Silk Hope.

There is a guy on youtube named Strudledog11 that has a Girardi and he loves it, it is a sweet / tart berry, loads up, produces for 2 months, and he is in North GA… just a bit south of me. It it works for him, it should for me.

No size issues with it… it only gets around 8 ft tall.

I am going to have a Silk Hope and Girardi… soon… so I will get those eventually, Perhaps next spring.

Thanks

TNHunter

[TNHunter]

Girardi 6 14 17

Hey… I looked up the youtube vids from Strudledog11 again… and the one above is the second vid where he shows his Girardi a 2nd time, to show how long it fruits. For him end of April to June…

And if you watch a few minutes of that video, he shows a Pakistan that did not do well for him, and he grafted a Girardi on it (he calls it a ugly graft)… but he had done that Girardi on Pakistan graft a year earlier… and the Girardi was 4-5 ft tall already, and looking good.

It looked to me like that Pakistan was just sort of lopped off, perhaps a foot or two tall and the Girardi grafted right to the stump.

Interesting…

TNHunter

[elivings1]

I have heard many mislabeling from One Green World one this forum which is a shame because they are expensive. One time I bought a blueberry from them called Pink Popcorn and it came totally diseased. They replaced it with another variety at my request called something like mini blues. It came looking good but the berries were black making me think they may have been mislabeled. If you want a Girardi Whitman farms may be selling them now and Raintree sells theirs for double the cost but I think you will be able to pre-order it starting July. My Girardi is very slow growing. It has put out some side branches since I bought it but has really not grown any taller since I bought it. People like the Girardi because it is slow growing and it just fruits so much. In my my Girardi fruits so much it has to shed fruit to save energy.

[DennisD]

Here is pic of my IE

[TNHunter]

@DennisD — thanks for the pic… and yes that looks like every IE that I have seen on youtube… and there are several.

Definately not what I got.

[TNHunter]

@elivings1 — on the slow growth… I suspect the Girrardi may grow slower in more northern regions… and perhaps a little faster in the south.

Noticed you are in zone 5… I am in 7a… and strudledog11 is in 8b. (Guess) northern. GA… and his grew 4 ft or more in 1 year.

TNHunter

[steveb4]

Trev. dont dig up that tree! it has a big root system already. put it to work growing girardi and silk hope next spring. you will be back into fruit much faster than planting a new tree and save your self more work and money. all kinds of places sell scions and alot of people on here have them they could send you next spring. cleft grafts or bark grafts are very easy to do with very good success. with 1 scion of each, half the tree would be one variety and half the other. in the meantime mix the mulberry you get with more tart fruit in jams and such. could even make a sweet syrup with them to use like honey.

[TNHunter]

@steveb4 — agree… my first grafting project is coming. PS … that is exactly what strudledog11 said… use that root system already in place.

He grafted Girrardi on an established Pakistan root system and it grew chest high in one year. It had some fruit on it too.

If I do still own this place next spring … I will be ready to try grafting… lots of good videos on YouTube on that. I have watched a few and it does not look all that difficult to me.

One more thing I need to learn and experience.

TNHunter

[elivings1]

I live in Colorado zone 5. Very short growing season with trees typically coming out of dormancy May and our first snow being in September or October. I would assume a zone 7 or 8 would be a lot longer of a growing season. That being said most mulberries will grow a lot in a season. People get the regular mulberries and they will grow 5 feet in one season. People on this forum have suggested growing Girardi mulberries in a pot and that is how I am growing them. For a regular mulberry most would just be too dang fast to grow for a pot. I would say it is more so the comparable speed of a Morus Nigra.