That root photo above reminded me of an observation I’ve been making over the past couple of years.
In my experience, Morus rubra appears to have ORANGE roots, as seen in this photo, while M. alba and hybrids’ roots are more on the yellow side, as Johann’s Garden showed us.
6 Likes
Mine probably is an alba. I had boucht it years ago as a dwarf black mulberry, but after years of it dying to the ground each winter it finally grew enough to start fruiting. It was disappointing to learn that the most dwarf part of it were its puny fruits. At least I can make use of its roots now.
1 Like
i have Riverview mulberry from a now defunct nursery in O.R. its supposed to be z3 hardy and so far has survived -40 with no damage. its about 6ft now. im anxious to try the fruit. had a 8ft Northrop that got killed by the -40 2 winters ago but came back and grew 6ft. last summer. if the fruit is inferior as ive been told it is, i may graft it over to Riverview or illni everbearing.
1 Like
-40, yikes! Trader is supposed to be extremely hardy, and I’ve heard it described as pretty tasty. I think they might be decent size, too. I haven’t grown it, myself.
I grew out a ‘dwarf black’ bush mulberry from a free cutting and it died back repeatedly. The fruit was terrible quality- tiny, insipid. I honestly don’t know why nurseries bother selling that sort of crap. It has almost nothing to recommend it. Pretty much a race to the bottom for a lot of these nurseries though, it seems.
That’s really helpful. The more distinguishing traits, the better. A lot of them seem a bit nebulous if you’re not looking at the two side by side. I’m sure YOU can tell one from a moving car, Lucky, just the way I can most any reasonably common species here. I did see some rubras for sale at the local Agway last summer, and their leaves were quite distinctive. At first, I thought they had mistakenly propagated paper mulberry, but I saw upon further investigation that rubras can have those same palmate leaves. Their texture was very distinctive. I won’t forget it having seen them up close.
It almost reminded me of the pads on a dog’s paws.
Rubra is endemic here, but super rare (on the state threatened and endangered list). It’s found only on east facing rocky slopes in the southern Connecticut River Valley, which is where I happen to live. I was just looking at a small tree today wondering if it might be a rubra. If had lenticles, elm-ish appearance, Buds looked almost the part- longer and pointier than alba buds. I don’t know what else it could have been, but will go check it at leaf out. It’s growing on a semi-shaded east facing slope covered with enormous butternuts and black walnuts. I don’t know of hand if Morus will tolerate juglone or not. I’d really like to find some local Rubras just to satisfy my curiosity.
Under state law, your not technically allowed to knowingly meddle with a T&E species in any way. I understand the rationale for protecting rare species, but I find it counterintuitive and counterproductive that regulations would prevent you from propagating them. Isn’t that just assuring their eventual demise, whereas the COULD be given a leg up by interested citizen scientist types like myself.
2 Likes
Birds are allowed to eat the fruits. Who’s to say they didn’t just “poop out some seeds in your yard” (or in your pots of soil).
M.rubra is still pretty common here, out on county backroads, and easy for me to spot, even at highway speeds.
This online publication is about as good as I’ve seen for differentiating Red and White mulberry from one another:
Bud morphology and placment is pretty helpful in making an ID in the dormant season.
There is a SARE grant-funded project in its second year, aimed at identifying and preserving pure M.rubra trees from the North-Central portion of the US. Details below; if you know of a good fruiting M.rubra, they’re interested in hearing about it, and possibly obtaining material to propagate for inclusion in a breeding orchard.
4 Likes
I have wild mulberry growing under black walnut.
1 Like
One of my local female M.rubra selections is growing so close to a black walnut that their trunks touch… both are probably 16" dbh. From a distance, I can’t tell which is which… have to get close enough to observe differences in bark and bud.
Another fruiting M.rubra, here at the house, came up at the edge of the pond spillway, not more than 20 ft from a much older volunteer BW seedling that I grafted over to a select cultivar.
2 Likes
i have 15 Trader mulberries coming from Hartmann’s in May. 
1 Like
I had the same experience after a half dozen rooted cuttings were eaten to the soil line by rodents. I unburied the section below the soil where there were still some dormant buds, but after a year only one plant sent out new growth.
I used the hot callus pipe to graft about 22 mulberries. Two failures. Overall I would say this has been quite successful.
2 Likes