I have a Illinios Everbearing mulberry that has greatly grown beyond what i would like for it to be What I am planning is referred to as pollarding. The trunk is about 4 inches in diameter. Main branches are 2-3 inches in diameter. I would like to take the branches down to within 6 inches of where the branches split off the trunk. (As it sits now, the tree is probably about 15+ feet tall with a spread of 15 feet out from the trunk in all directions.
What time of year should this be done? I know this will be a continuing process that once started would have to be continued and maintained. Can it be done in such a way as to allow continued fruiting?
I need to find a way for the mulberry to coexist with other plants which are suffering from being shaded out as it has gotten far wider than I would have liked
imo, find it more favorable for most trees to be pruned/pollarded when dormant. Especially with sappy mulbs–always helps to minimize ‘bleeding out’ since it is that period when sap is not flowing much or at a standstill. Also, the rootstock manages to get boosted by the maximum of photosynthesis from previous spring and summer. Personally not into summer pruning-- unless the leaves are overlapping too much that it is defeating the purpose of having the extra foliage.
with our pak, i just do a straightforward decapitation of the leggy leaders(and donate the budwood), and leave plenty of laterals, since it is these which typically bear.
IE is a challenge to keep small. I did winter pruning this year to get it down to 7 feet. It grew so much I did more pruning in early July of the new growth. There is sap flow from the cuts but it didn’t harm the tree. Since then new growth has grown another 8 ft. I’ll wait for dormancy to prune that.
One problem with the pruning of the vigorous growth is that the tree gets so dense that it gets hard to harvest the fruit. I need to figure out a better pruning technique or perhaps it can be grown in a pot. A dwarfing rootstock would be nice.
Speaking of donated pakastan mulberry scion wood, here is my pakastan graft. The leaves are absolutely huge, and the scion has really added some girth.
I was thinking that during the dormant period was the time to do it. I am actually thinking that early spring might prevent winter damage to the cut surfaces.
I am thinking that next year I just bite the bullet and cut back the entire canopy (rather than trying to do the initial hard pruning over more than 1 year). Yes, it will mean that I get no fruit off this particular tree, but it will be done and I can tHen work on maintaining it.
Supposedly pollard end mulberries can still fruit on 1-2 year wood, so maintaining such wood would then be the goal (along with controlling the size/spread)
Anyone want Illinios Everbearing wood next spring, I will have no problem delivering…
glad to see it grew ‘like corn in the moonlight.’ If you remember where the laterals are which fruited, those are the most precious, as those will likely fruit next year, and possibly with bigger fruits that are more likely to mature, as opposed to getting dropped.
