I grew these seedlings this year.
The process was relatively easy. Wash and clean the seeds from ripe fruit last summer, completely dry them, soak and sow them in late autumn.
They germinated surprisingly early, beginning of April.
One big mistake I did was sowing them into a larger air prune bed. Snails seem to LOVE them and destroyed about three quarters of my seedlings at the two leaf stage.
I am mainly growing them with the idea of obtaining rootstock to graft my varieties (I have 5 different ones)
Is this a good idea? Or are specific mulberry species suited especially well as rootstock? I think I read somewhere Morus tartaricaā¦
These seedlings are all from Illinois everbearing, a rubra x alba hybrid. I sowed seeds from three different varieties, one was completely sterile and one was eaten by snails fully the moment they germinated (very interesting how they fully ate one variety before they started eating the other one)
How long can I expect to wait for mulberry seedlings to bear fruit so I can sample them?
Are mulberry seedlings rather similar to their parent or is the genetic spread very far?
Illinois Everbearing seedlings should be quite interesting. I see some big differences in the vigor of the different seedlings in your picture, something Iām seeing in my seedlings from hybrids. I think it is also a good possibility that Gerardi is a seedling of Ill Eve., so keep an eye out for any dwarf types with short internodes. Iām not sure how long they will take to bloom, but it could be anywhere from 3-7 years depending on growth conditions and genetics. Grafting to a large established rootstock may speed things up.
I have noticed that the few hybrids I have attempted to make crosses with seem to have low fertility. I suspect that rubra and alba are not as closely related as we assume.
Mulberry seeds can be germinated immediately without any stratification if they are sown without drying out. I have some Varaha and Gerardi seedlings growing now from this spring crossed to M. rubra.
Sadly at least 70% will never make fruit. I was told that mulberry seedlings are 70% male, perhaps female seedlings are more fragile or itās an easier way for trees to survive to spreading their genetics or to back cross to the mother tree for more unique genes, I donāt know, but he was quite knowledgeable about mulberries, maybe there are that many fruitless females that they just look male.
The fruit will likely not be like the motherās, they tend to be sweet but flavorless. My recommendation if you want to try the new seedlings is leave one branch facing south or Southwest and graft about that with a desired variety, then you can test the fruit off the lower branch if it bears, then you have 3 options: leave it that branch for the original fruit or as a male pollinator if thatās what it turns out to be, or graft over that branch too, or cut back the grafted top of the tree and let your new seedling variety take over entirely, if the fruit is actually that good, and congratulations, youāre the proud breeder of a new variety that you get to name.
Ok, that doesnāt sound very encouraging, in regards to letting them fruit and sampling them, luckily that wasnāt my original plan anyways.
Does anyone know if these seedlings will accept scions grafted from other mulberry species easily, or is it a safer bet to graft only from each mother tree to itās own seedlings?
The varieties i have are of different species, one pure M. alba, one M. rubra x alba, two M. australis cultivars and one M. alba var. pendula and I want to try my hand at grafting each of these, as I have had a very low success rate wlth cuttings
Is that right? I am not sure thatās the case for the ones in my area where alba with some ruba heritage seem to dominate, but Iām also tend to ignore the ones without fruit so my perception of the ratio might be very biased. But it feels like thereās a lot more fruit bearing mulberries. Maybe Iāll do a proper survey of the trees someday
My sister doesnāt have mulberries and none are obvious in her area, but sheās in a suburb and birds can fly around with whatever seeds they can and she has lots of mulberries growing like weeds, I canāt tell you what kind they are other than send a few pictures of the leaves.
In any case I grafted onto them some worked some didnāt, but it was late in the season and I treated them badly so Iām happy that some worked.
That ārussian mulberryā might be Morus tatarica?
I am still wondering whether mulberries are generally compatible between different species scion and rootstock, or if only some of the species make suitable rootstock.
I donāt live in the US, so your source of rootstock is not available to me
I am growing two Morus rubra seedlings, grown from seed from Trade Winds Fruit. Does anyone have a preferred genetic testing service theyāve used in the past to find out if the seedlings are male or female? Right now the two seedlings Iāve got in the ground are both about 2 feet tall, so I want to catch gender somewhat early.
If Iāve got all males Iām going to start looking for female scions I can graft.
Iām always a bit skeptical of M. rubra seed sources. Do you have pictures of your seedlings?
Existing sex determining markers for predicting males in mulberries are not very reliable as far as I know. I would be really surprised if there were any services that could test for it.
I donāt blame you. When I had started these seeds, I didnāt realize that M. rubra and M. alba hybridize and that M. rubra is being out competed.
I took some pictures of one of the seedlingās leaves and bark, included below. Theyāre both a little over one foot tall at a year old. No lobed leaves. The underside of its leaves are slightly rough.
In a not very thorough investigation there seems to be two and a half male mulberry trees (I think one bears both male and female flowers that Iāve noticed) along the path I walk to the library from my house, and six and a half fruit bearing ones. And a bunch too young to tell.
Definitely not black mulberry. M. nigra is extremely difficult to grow from seed and all M. nigra in existence are a single genotype. Much (most?) of the āMorus nigraā for sale are really Morus alba.
Yes, that appears to be the case. Seedlings typically are deformed and runted, but a few can eventually reach maturity with lots of TLC. The few that make it are likely the result of apomixis and identical to the mother tree, but may take 10-30 years to fruit.
There may be slight variation due to epigenetic drift or climate/culture conditions, but the entire species seems to a single genotype.
