M. nigra is a bush of the genus, and not from the north American or east Asia continents.
The Black Beauty cultivar sold on Russian Mulberry (Morus alba) rootstock grows every bit as fast as M. alba in my location. After having it in the ground for about 1.5 years I cut it back to 4 ft. a few weeks ago. That only made it mad 
. My wife does not care for the taste of the fruit so I’ll be digging it up and giving it away to anyone who’d like to come get it. I do not ship plant material.
i hope it does, as more nodes(on seasoned stems), the more berries!
literally buying my way to more mature stems by hoarding tree-sized nigras. With nigras, time is money, and money is time. So hoping you and @nellieg get to enjoy your nigras much sooner than i did, as wouldn’t want anybody experience my three-year itch lol
paks also grow fast here, just as fast or even faster than white mulbs.
i have the same assumption. And being slow growing in high deserts, also assume it won’t cause much problems(compared to faster-growing/larger trees) with pavements and plumbing, at least not in what few decades might be left of my finite existence. [quote=“nellieg, post:8, topic:6954”]
say the BB and NdS taste the same, would you recommend one over the other? Like does one bear more fruit, grow a bit quicker, etc?
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from what have observed the past four seasons, they are virtual peers in vigor, taste, and performance. Quite possible they will differ in growth rates with various rootstock. But here, they are all very slow-growing here,and will only be reliable producers once they start bearing mature berries.
incidentally, do you have star nursery in phx?
“Paks” are “white mulbs”.
i meant other white mulbs, but not really worth belaboring as to whether or not you want to designate it as macroura or alba, or whether or not you want to distinguish it by color of buds.
my stand still holds— it is not worth belaboring.
we’ve been through this before Richard. If you read through your posts here Mulberry Tree Suggestion - #6 by Richard
you mentioned paks as albas, just as i did, and you also mentioned paks as macrouras(another ‘designated’ name for the pak species) which basically separates it from the term alba, which pertains to ‘white’. So perhaps i should ask you-- is macroura still a white mulb or is it no longer?
What you call “Paks” and “white mulbs” are the same species (M. alba) albeit different cultivars.
Are you growing Morus macroura?
grain of salt, Richard, considering your post adamantly stating paks being sold by ‘reputable’ nurseries as alba, and then correcting youself later and saying it is macroura.
totally understand your conflicting claims, since there are several cultivars of macroura.
check https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/search.aspx and enter morus macroura. You’d see there are several entries. There is an entry for ‘pakistan’, there is a ‘red’ , a ‘white’, and even one that is outright erroneous at worst, or gravely misleading at best-- being named ‘black mulberry’.
moreover, there is also a morus alba entered as pakistan.
contingent to whether or not the pak alba is same as pak macroura. This latest post of yours now deem paks being albas, but the entries in the repository show two species(one alba and one macroura) of the same label ‘pakistan’.
Raf, where did you buy your larger NdS trees? Bareroot I’m assuming? I’ve been planing on ordering from Whitman Farms because I’ve had such great experience with her before. Would this be a good decision for this tree? Hoping to plant one this fall as I’ve had far better success with fall planting here in AZ since our summers are so brutal they have more time to establish.
i bought them from Star nursery(but they are persians, and not noir), and they were 7 to 8 feet tall, which fruited heavily as soon as they planted them in spring.
the noirs i have were from Ms Whitman, and each were 8 to 10 inch sticks when obtained some 4 yrs ago.
in las vegas, all cultivars of nigras grow excruciatingly slow, and small specimens take many years for wood to season. I would strongly advise(or should i say, beg) you spend 100$ on one 8 ft tall nigra, instead of buying four 8-inch tall nigras at 25$ apiece. The 100 bucks on that one tree would be worth much, much more than the 100 you paid for the tiny ones.
the trouble with young nigras is that instant gratification could take forever, lol
Wow, they were really that small!?!? My Girardi I got from her in May is 27" so a bit over 2’. Has grown a few inches but it was prob 2’ when it arrived. Was your girardi that small when you got it? I checked Google and it looks like there is a Star Nursery in Kingman but that’s a 3+ hour drive from me 
Raf, are there any other online sources of Morus nigra in addition to the Whitman Farms?
BTW, does anybody know if “Persian Fruiting Mulberry” sold by DWN (http://www.davewilson.com/product-information/product/mulberries) is indeed Morus nigra? It is described as “tree to 25-30 ft.” which would be unusual for M. nigra (unless one waits for dozens of years).
Also, any experience with “Dwarf Mulberry ‘Dwarf Everbearing’” from Logee’s (http://www.logees.com/dwarf-mulberry-dwarf-everbearing-morus-nigra.html)?
if you’re buying from burntridge, just buy noir de spain if you want a true nigra, as they have apparently changed their blac beauty to the type which logee’s has been selling as ‘everbearing blac beauty morus nigra’, which is definitely not nigra.
davewilson seems to be a credible purveyor of nigras, but you can never predict with basic clerical stuff, as it may just be due to tags falling off and being inadvertently placed on the wrong specimen nearby which happens to be a mulberry but not a nigra.
btw, have seen leggy nigras with saucer-sized foliage(typically small in desert regions), which gave me the impression they grew pretty fast, and could almost surmise they were grown under shade and given plenty of water during their time at the previous nursery. Especially if from overcast and moist OR or WA. In dry and sunny conditions, it is impossible to produce that type of growth. Fast-growth does not equate to seasoned stems, btw, as those long canes had puny little buds on lengthy greenwood, instead of the gnarled branching with plump buds typical of desert-hardened nigras.
Stan, I have a Dave Wilson Dwarf Morus Nigra Everbearing mulberry. I don’t think it’s a true Nigra from what I’ve read here and other places. I’m in zone 9 and mine went from a tiny 1’ stick to a bush 8’ tall and wide in 14 months. Very fast growing and I don’t think it’s about to slow down any time soon. They are supposed to be 6-8’ according to the tag so who knows where that # came from. Fruit was decent. My kids really liked them so I planted a 2nd. It also is truly everbearing as it’s on it’s 3rd fruiting this year but the berries this summer have been dry and awful. Too mush heat I assume and am hoping the 3rd fruiting forming will be better since the temps are dropping soon. Would like a true Morus Nigra so following this thread.
my gerardi’s from Ms Whitman were tiny, unfortunately. I also bought from burntridge and theirs were somewhat bigger and had more branching, but still not enough substance to be game-changing. BTW, the gerardi is another option if you want something dwarfish. It is a bonafide dwarf(at least here in vegas)
speaking for myself, the 3 hr drive will be worth it. A 3 hour drive is nothing compared to 3-4 years of waiting! Of course you’d need to contact them first for availabiity. A sizeable 100$ 8-footer could give you several bowlfuls at spring time the same year if you bought it prior to leafing out, whereas 4 tiny nigras(worth 100$) will probably give you half a bowl, if you get lucky–after 3 years of waiting.
you are saying now that your yard is not that big, but after three years(or more) you’d be more apt to say that your 4 nigras seem to be too small for your yard…
Okay, Raf, you have me interested in the drive though my hubby will pass out at the suggestion! Do you think both of these vendors are selling the Noir on own root or do you think they are grafted? It seems like some people are having explosive growth on their Noirs and I am wondering if they are grafted on a faster growing mulberry rootstock? Are both of yours growing at the same rate?
Moved post to a new thread
Yes. You can also find different species of fruit under the name ‘Gold Nugget’.
glad to hear that, but i hope you won’t blame me for any unforeseen shortcomings of the endeavor…
now, if you’re not happy with your purchase or if it dies within a year, you could always bring it back to star nursery and be credited the money back, whereas online nurseries have no such guarantee
incidentally, star nursery sells theirs grafted on unspecified albas, and it is somewhat like cheating when doing this because albas grow fast, so the 8 foot tall would have a pollarded look with a 5 foot trunk that is purely alba, and a crown canopy of about three feet tall and three feet wide that is pure nigra. So if you’re buying one, it is best to buy the specimen with the widest and tallest canopy, and also better to choose the ones which have the thickest calipers at the nigra portion of the trunk. Gnarly branching with plump buds relative to stem thickness are also good indicators of seasoned wood.
all seven nigras i have, have similar growth rates. I obtained the blac beauty from burntridge, the noirs from whitman, and the standard persian from star nursery
precisely, hence not worth belaboring the uncertainty principle.
