Yes all traits are.genetic and can be bred or selected for .
Back on the topic of mulberries for pig feed, this old book that was posted above is actually pretty interesting. I’d much rather eat one of those than a pig raised on the junk they feed them now. At least around here, the farms give them leftovers from restaurants. This means odd pieces of silverware, dishes, glass, plastic, and styrofoam all get mixed in with whatever the pigs eat.
Eliza Greenman at Hog tree Farm has located and propagated some old mulberry varieties . I would think everbearing types would have both types of flowers or the ability to set seedless fruit .
Yes they all do and can convert from one to the other sex too. I mean the whole tree. Seeing male flowers on a female may mean the tree is in trouble.
I believe my seedling is valuable even if a male tree. Not many nigra male trees around and these trees don’t usually produce both sexes, but certainly can. The mother tree never had male flowers. It caught a fungal infection that was threatening the tree, so the tree produced male flowers to preserve itself in the form of offspring.
If my seedling has pollen from another nigra that would have been a bummer. As this tree is the only known nigra to live in zone 6. Keeping the genes in a next generation is fantastic and has huge commercial potential too.
I agree. For one mulberry fruit and leaves are bursting with nutrients. I bet those swine tasted divine! 
Fight to keep it. You need to get kids involved. City Hall doesn’t like to get bad publicity and kids are great lovers of mulberries.
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you portray yourself as a newbie, but you summed up your experience like a true mulberry connoisseur. And no, it wouldn’t matter now how that mulberry compares with others, because there’s at least one person who likes it already(you), and considering that you haven’t tried other mulbs before, it says a lot about the quality of those mulberries since could assume you based your standards against a prime blackberry or other common berries. I agree with just about everyone here saying that it is a shame to destroy the tree/s. I hope your townsfolk petition that it be spared. Moreso if it is a rubra.
and yes, albas and rubras can get really tall(although some alba’s are just bushy, if not dwarfish). Alba’s can reach >50 feet even in this toasty and moisture-deficient desert.
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The size of the tree may not put it into record territory, but to the many birds, animals, and people who have enjoyed its bounty for so many years, it is “extra ordinary”. I hope you are able to sway the electric company to spare this beauty.
It definitely has a lot of rubra characteristics: The bark, non-glossy leaf, acuminate leaf apex, and what appears to be dark buds and branches (rubra branch is dark brown with a reddish tinge) are all rubra characteristic. That being said, pure rubras don’t fruit in “clusters” and their fruits are usually more elongated. So my honest opinion (Without genetic testing the best anyone can give is only an opinion) is that it is a rubra x alba cross of some nature.
Thank you for making an effort. I will certainly will be waiting in suspense on the outcome.
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I’ve had success rooting summer cuttings. For anyone with the space that is a desirable tree.
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an instance when the scourge(alba) being one of the reasons why the purity of rubra bloodline is endangered, is the same exact thing that actually produces an endless bounty of possibilities, which may enhance the rubra it threatens(including increasing life expectancy, since rubra’s don’t typically attain past 100 yrs of age).
Should we recruit mulberry gestapo’s to roundup and annihilate all alba’s and rubra-alba hybrids to protect rubra’s? Or should we embrace the bewildering array of diversity resulting from the scourge?
speaking of alba’s, i actually think taxonomists are just too lazy assigning new species names, as even among alba’s there is just too much diversity,so possible that among rubra-alba hybrids, the characteristics would vary, and several specimens might produce excellent fruits, as @thecityman found and advocating for. There is a good chance it is a hybrid, and a hybrid between two species is no longer the same as any of the parent species(as opposed to tomato f1-f2 “hybrids”, etc).
thus said, if it is an interspecific it should be renamed Morus citymaneae 
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Whew! You went a bit over my head with some of that! haha. Did I mention I know nothing about mulberries? haha. But I actually did get a lot out of your responses and appreciate the contribution. I’ll keep everyone posted on the fate of this tree!
But I do love the name you came up with for this tree! hahaha.
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i just planted a northrop mulberry from cricket hill and grafted IE to my russian mulberry. i hope they take. I’ve also rooted a bunch of IE cuttings from folks on here. they’re starting to leaf out so it looks like many took! I’ve never tasted a mulberry as they normally don’t grow this far north but from what I’ve red on here i should like them. i haven’t met much berries i don’t like.
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I’ve got berries on mine already…Very tasty little buggers… I think you’ll like them if you can get some before the animals…LOL
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A little musical interlude, sung to Berle Ives, We need a little Christmas!!
Drag out the chainsaws
Make sure the chains are sharp, full of gas & oil,
Make room for progress,
We need the power,
Not more bland and tasteless fruit now,
'Cause we need another strip mall,
Need another quick care,
Need another c-store,
A bank or 2 won’t hurt,
Repeat from "Cause we…
Merry Christmas to all!!
Cut mulberries and stack them for smokin’ wood.
I’m so sick of mulberry volunteers…
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So they paved paradise and put up a parking lot?
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Some of you may remember my story about a month ago. I found out that the local electrical utility company was planning to cut a huge, beautiful mulberry tree and I posted photos of the tree here and asked some questions about it. I’ve shown the photo again here, and you can see by the red X that it was marked to be cut down.
Well, I put up a huge fight for this tree even though it wasn’t mine. I contacted the president of the electric utility and didn’t have any luck. So I wrote a letter and sent it to all 10 of the board of directors, explaining that I was going to alert the media and tell the world about how an old, beautiful mulberry tree that supports wildlife, provides shade, is beautiful and an asset to the community was going to be killed simply because the electric company didn’t want to trim the few limbs that grow into power lines every few years. I reminded them that they’ve been trimming it for decades. I reminded them that at a time when America is trying to be “green” they are doing the opposite by killing a healthy large tree. Long story short, they relented. Here is what the tree looks like today! The black paint is a source of pride to me and a metaphor for their mistake! ha
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