Purple reign

When it comes to a novice grafter like myself, and with limited M. nigra scion wood at my disposal, what type of grafting would I have the most chance to succeed with, a bud graft in September to go dormant in the winter, or a cleft graft in late Spring using scion wood collected in winter and stored in the refrigerator?

imho, spring is the best time, primarily for graft union strength, since the graft will have a longer healing and growing period.

Well I finally “published” my mulberry website: growingmulberry.org
I wound up using a LOT of your outstanding photos…Most the photos I took were pathetic in comparison…But, if you for any reason want them removed, I will substitute them out. I gained a lot of knowledge (at least in my mind) from the people in this forum, and I am indebted to everyone here.

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kudos! I really like it! I am sure it will be helpful to many. And tell me if you need more photos-- “on the house” as always :slight_smile:

Amazing website. Great job!!!

bought a few more instant-trees(taking advantage of the autumn price markdowns). And evidently, when it comes to nigras, the oldies are the goodies !
This ~10-footer is forming berries in october :sunglasses:

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A question to the Morus nigra aficionados: A grafted tree purchased October 2015 grew to about 4 feet all of last spring and summer in Miami, Florida (10b). In September 2016, on a very hot week, it suffered a sun scorch (my bad) from which it recovered with new growth. I planted it in ground in late fall, with good mulch and adequate watering since then. Scratch test is green, but it hasn’t leafed out yet as of May 8, 2017. Shall I despair??

sorry to hear your mulb is not doing fine.

nigras are supposedly immune to intense sun, even here in vegas , so probably due to some other malady. Maybe humidity or wet feet.Florida seems to be a challenging place to grow nigras, for some reason

would you have pictures?

Oh I forgot to mention that the day before the sun scorch ordeal, I had taken a cutting from it to try to graft on another M. alba. It bled some, but I didn’t realize it was going to hurt it that badly. At any rate, it seemingly recovered. Early this winter, it gradually lost its leaves like it’s supposed to, and it’s been without any leaves since then. I will take pictures tomorrow. The graft didn’t even take…

nigra berries from green to red to purple, with dates of photos as i promised @Livinginawe

nigras are at their prime when 1" or longer

below is the greatest bargain since seward’s alaska – 79.99$ for a really old 10 footer with plenty of seasoned wood in a 15 gallon. A bit sore though that the nursery trimmed many of those precious laterals to save space…
the metal pingpong table should facilitate harvesting the berries borne way up

below are our paks which continue to bear berries like jackfruit(too low to the ground). Blackberries and mulberries being in the same botanical order(Rosales), intriguing to note that fruiting and stem growth patterns are quite similar. Primocanes are the uprights, while floricanes are the fruiting laterals.


apart from birds(which raided all the 3" long pak berries :rage:)leaf-footed bugs and kin are the other pests we’ve seen on our mulbs.
these critters have the most impersonal appearance and traits. Even when engaging in this interlude, the pair prefers not to do it face to face

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I have a few berries on my nigra that are still holding.

:+1:

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very close to the finish line @k8tpayaso!

I finally got around to taking pictures. First are pics of my grafted M. nigra that won’t break dormancy

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Now some pics of my M. nigra seedlings

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That looks just like a fig. Late leafing would be a huge plus here. Our fruitless mulberries get frozen back most springs.

a little worried about your nigra that is still snoozing, considering that you are in 10B. I hope it is still alive. Jujubes(relative of mulbs in the order Rosales), sometimes do do not leaf out until mid-June for no apparent reason. Since nigras generally leaf out later than jujus, your specimen may just be acting(hopefully) like its cousin,.

btw, congrats on your nigra seedlings. They seem to have strong nigra traits. Our noir of spain produced fig-type leaves on and off over the years, for yet undetermined reasons. Makes me wonder if your nigra has noir lineage. Please update us on the progress of your seedlings. Possibly a long-term study, but there is always a chance it might have some precocious traits from foreign pollen which produced it.
exciting to know if berries are as good as any other nigra, or if it might have some subtle or radical nuance/s

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Do you have any idea why your $80 nigra was grafted so high? I received one, as a result of a dispute, from Willis Orchard that was grafted at 43" (I believe it came from L.E. Cooke). Other than a marketing tool (selling a 5 foot as apposed to a 18" plant) is there a benefit that escapes me?

I believe I’ve read that grafting high is one way to produce a hardier tree. Not sure I grasp the mechanism at this late hour but I’m pretty sure that’s the idea.

Kokusa fruit forming (shocking as a week ago it barely had swollen buds.

I am attempting to root some pruning so of this mulberry and the cuttings seem much better than the Illinois Everbearing which looked bad within just a week.

Scott

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for convenience and looks, apart from being a marketing ploy to sway the buyer into thinking that he is getting a full-grown nigra. *Of course, i made sure that the stem structures above the grafts were dense and ‘labyrinthine’ with the most fruiting stems–with very plump buds :slight_smile:

when i say convenience, nigras are a bit more difficult to harvest from above(if you notice in most my pics, i have to position the camera underneath since berries are more visible from below)Because nigras assume a bushy growth, and take forever to grow 5 feet when grafted low, grafting high creates a pollarded canopy. As for looks-- it is much like “tree roses” having a neater appearance and more convenient to trim or manage being at the right height, since within arm’s reach with the person standing up. Nigras grafted at ~4 to 5 ft level makes it ideal for the harvester to go under the canopy, because seasoned nigra stems generally start producing large amounts of berries at about ~3 feet or more from the graft-site, so the bushy, sprawling growth creates an instant canopy that is convenient to harvest from below with the person simply walking under it.

speaking of lecooke, they definitely sell the real mccoy, and the 2nd to the last picture at the link below shows why it is advantageous to graft at ~5 ft level.

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