Red Mulberry?

Ill bet the chickens wish that was a fruiting female tree!
‘Hicks Everbearing’ made its fortune as a source of food for hogs and chickens, and, IMO, that’s about all its good for. Pigs & chickens don’t cull much.

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I’m newer than you. I get the inclination to grow things from my dad, he would collect seeds from any interesting plant he came across, and start the in a pot, then move them to the yard. But he didn’t have the internet until the last 20 years of his life to learn from. I got into it beginning last spring, I bought a house in a rural town after living in the Dallas, TX area all my life. My house had no trees, it looks like the land was cleared years ago for farming, and the soil not taken care of. Local county soil is rated “mineral soil, 0% organic content”, this ugly grey clay. But that’s part of the challenge that I love. And then last spring I met the mulberry tree. I had two berries sprout in a big pot of potting soil, and I started researching the species, and the more I read, the more fascinated I became with this crazy tree. I haven’t rooted a cutting myself yet, but have seen it done on several videos. Search Youtube for rooting Morus Rubra. The way I want to try, if I ever get a hold of any rubra cuttings, this guy used vermiculite and clear plastic bags that were long and skinny. He moistened the vermiculite so you could not squeeze water out of it any more, put it in a baggie, and cut the cutting at an angle with a new cut, and scrape the bark on the side from the cut to about a half inch up, so it exposes the cambium, and do this close to a node. Put rooting hormone powder on it. or dip it in liquid rooting hormone. Seal the baggie around the trunk so you can lay it down flat. Put them in a warm sunny spot, and you will be able to see the roots growing thru the baggie. Looks really easy on Youtube :slight_smile: most of the videos also mentioned doing several, because not all will take. They were always using dormant prunings, and had plenty of them.

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I ran across an article from some university that they took mulberry leaves and made a meal out of them, basically drying and turning into powder. Then they substituted protein added to chicken food with the the mulberry leaf meal. The protein supplement that was substituted was made from soybeans. After feeding the chickens like this for a period of time, they analyzed the almost everything about the eggs, and the chickens, and found the chickens to be much healthier, the meat when cooked had lower cholesterol and trans fats. The eggs yolks had less cholesterol, and found many of the antioxidants in the leaves in the eggs. This also lowered the cost of the feed by more than half. More of why I am amazed by this tree. It’s leaves are edible and very good for you.

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I’m going to try and root a few green wood shoots, shortly after leaf fall, from the chicken house mulberry tree. The goal would be to use the takers for root stocks. The method you discribed is basicly what I was planning to try. Score the end to expose the cambium and dip that in rooting hormone (I like clonex) push down in 1/2 fine bark and good top soil, then bag the whole thing and keep warm. I’m just going to try to root the tips, which should be the newest/greenest wood and hopefully the highest chance for sucess. IDK… its just an attempt and i’ll learn from trying. I dont get discouraged from failures, I look at failures as learning opportunities.

Thanks for the reply.

Take a spade shovel and dig a hole, you’ll probably find a good layer of top soil starting about 8 to 12" deep, maybe deeper. Its common practice to plow (which turns over the soil) and disc smooth. If you find burried topsoil its not a bad thing that its burried. Once roots find it the plants take off.

Unfortunately that’s not the case here. I have dug 3 holes about 2 and a half ft deep, and about 3 ft in diameter, to transplant my mulberries into in a month or so, and one, I ran into a big crack in the clay about 2 ft down, which makes it drain like a toilet flushing…well they like well drained soil. I shoved a bunch of grass clippings in it to clog up the opening, which will keep the amended soil in, and slows down the draining, no whirlpool anyway, until the soil gets enough rain to close up the crack. The other two are the same size, and they are like a clay pot that drains slowly, fill it with water and it is gone in about 10 minutes. I wanted to check the drainage at each spot, to make sure I don’t kill the poor things. I did manage to kill a pecan tree from root rot, I know, because when it died, I could pull it up out of the ground and it had no roots left. I also killed another one more slowly, and have one dying in the ground now. I know I didn’t amend the soil correctly, these were from pecans I found and planted in a pot, last spring, and in early summer they were about 6 inches tall in the pot, but a “friend” told me that pecan trees make really long tap roots and they will get all tangled up in the pot, and I need to get the transplanted ASAP. Instead of researching like I was already on the mulberry, I took his word and moved them, and now they are almost all dead. Another from the same batch of pecans, is in a pot by itself and doing great. It’s going to grow in that pot until next fall, and I want it to be at least 3 feet tall first. I guess I have to kill some to get better and learn.

Just a fyi for Kip Parker fans…

I grafted KP late spring to a Russian mulberry rootstock from Burnt Ridge… and got it planted in ground in early August.

I kept it single stem until 5 ft tall then tipped it (maby 2-3) weeks ago.

I checked it today… and as expected it had sent out several branches just below that tip cut.

3 of those branches actually had fruit on.

I sure was not expecting that this late in the season.

I did my Oscar and Lawson Dawson the same way… and got the same type of branching results… but no fruit.

Looks like KP may be eager to fruit.

TNHunter

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Rumor has it that TNHunter has adopted me and I get to eat all the fresh mulberries i want :yum:

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I have holes around that seem like what your describing. I’ve learned they are snake holes. Mainly lined snakes but we also have vipers around, cotton mouths and copper heads so I need to be able to identify good from bad. I haven’t seen anything other than lined snakes come out of the holes though. A few weeks ago I walked out the back door at night to find newly born lined snakes. It was pretty crazy… But lined snakes are good snakes to have around, so I left the be. They are of the gartner family (non-venomous).

We also have land lobsters. They also dig tunnels and push up chimneys in the spring. If you can catch a mess of them, they aint bad eating.

Screenshot_20240915_211115_Brave

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