There is a difference between slow growing and dwarf plant cultivars. True dwarfs grow at a regular rate but have short internode spacings and a very limited height. M. nigra is not dwarf but very slow growing. There are specimens well over 40’ in south central Asia.
@DijonG , @Fishinjunky
The standard notation order for hybrids is “female x male”.
@Fishinjunky @Richard
Yes, I used the standard hybrid notation for my cross, so the “father” is a mystery tree I found under the powerlines behind my home. I’m calling it ‘Pithlachocco Two-Spirit Grande’ because my place is practically on the banks of lake Pithlachocco, it’s monoecious (“two-spirit”), & it has big fruit.
BUT there’s a seemingly identical tree down the street in my neighbor’s yard, & I suspect they may both just be random male-flowering sports of the variety ‘Tice’. The description for that variety matches perfectly, besides the male flowers I mean.
@DijonG
That is a good choice for a name. Also, given the location and sexuality, it is likely M. alba.
A seedling is never a sport.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear, but I suspect both of the trees were grown from cuttings of the variety ‘Tice’.
I can’t be certain ‘P2-SG’ isn’t a seedling, but it definitely isn’t an alba. It has virtually no characteristics in common - leaves are large & dull green;, slightly fuzzy; not glossy; bark is grayish & shaggy; not particularly yellow in young bark or roots; flavor of berries is an excellent sweet/tart. There are also wild rubras down the street in both directions (some of which are monoecious), & there are two female albas on my property I can compare them to. No similarities beyond both being mulbs.
Mark aka Livinginawe suspects it’s a hybrid of rubra & macroura. The general consensus among nurseries seems to be that ‘Tice’ is a chance alba x rubra hybrid. I’m not sure anyone has even developed a genetic test that could say for sure.
@DijonG
There are few, if any, wild M. rubra in FL. However, there are plenty of feral hybrids. Further, true M. rubra is strictly dioecious while M. alba is partially monoecious. Both species are named for the color of their bark, not the color of their ripe berries. M. rubra is a nearly extinct native plant whereas M. alba is a landrace. Worldwide, there are many cultivars of the latter whose berry colors span the rainbow.
What exactly is siam jumbo mulberry a hybrid of? I read it before and forgot then tried looking again through some threads.
I’ve wondered previously if it would be desirable to use it to add size in breeding new improved cold hardy mulberries.
In that case, they are clones, not sports. However, they could be clones of a sport branch on Tice.
It might not be a hybrid, but instead an auxin-induced variant of M. macroura.
I received scions from Lucky Pittman of local to him Morus rubra selections. Among these were Daugherty #1 and Daugherty #2. Daugherty #2 produced both male flowers and fruits for me, so it’s monoecious, and most definitely a real deal rubra. I’m excited about this as I expected all my rubra selections to be dioecious.
I have numerous cultivar mulberry varieties but really want to focus on breeding the rubras. How exactly to do this will be a bit of a trick considering all the wild mulberry pollen around me but i have some ideas. No nursery I have found offers real rubra seedlings. Offering those alone would be worth the venture, beyond that, making great fruiting selections is a secondary bonus. And then when crossed to alba, the chances for a superior everbearing go up.
I have about 10-12 rubra selections, males, females, and now the hermaphrodite. Still little trees but looking forward to more!
Therefore it is an alba, rubra hybrid.
feral hybrid pollen
Morus are deciduous and therefore never everbearing.
A hermaphrodite flower contains male and female gametes in separate whorls.
A monoecious individual has both male and female unisexual flowers.
Monoecious does not mean hermaphrodite.
@Richard
Who’s description of M. rubra are you relying on to identify “true” red mulberries?
Every professional description I’ve seen of M. rubra has mentioned that monoecious individuals aren’t uncommon. I’ve also personally seen specimens exhibiting fe/male flowers with virtually no resemblance to an alba, as I’ve been hunting down rubras from Virginia to Florida & beyond. Florida most certainly still has rubra populations. My home abuts state forest & I’ve seen several there. I’ve also received samples of trees from other isolated wildlands that, again, are entirely unlike any alba & perfectly match descriptions such as those in Purdue’s ID guide.
Neither species is named for the color of the bark, but the band around the tip of dormant buds, just as M. nigra is named for its black buds. The leaves of M. rubra are quite distinctive, & nothing like those of M. alba or most hybrids (IME). Here’s a photo showing the general difference (top rubra, hybrid in middle, & alba bottom):
You’re nitpicking with a lot of colloquial terms. Many hybrids are considered “everbearing”, i.e., “Illinois Everbearin”, for example…
@KS_razerback
IIRC ‘Siam Jumbo’ is a cross between macroura & “a European species”. I take that to mean alba, which is what it resembles in my opinion.
I’ve been contemplating this as well. Think I’m gonna have to build a high tunnel & add a HEPA filter.
From a genetic perspective, there is much to recommend alba/rubra hybrids. Higher production, larger fruit, better flavor, and many other traits are enhanced with hybrids. While I have access to several local M. rubra trees, I’m leaning heavily on grafted hybrids for fruit production.
Because they were observing feral hybrids.
Vary widely.
None of my comments were made as criticisms. I apologize if they were perceived as such.
‘Everbearing’ is the only term that might be considered colloquial. The others are taxonomic with strict definitions in the botany literature.
I wouldn’t discount the use of auxins in the cross.
I have an interest in cold hardy to zone 3b. I have 2 Trader mulberries from tissue culture. One in 5b and one in 3b. No fruit yet. I plan to use seed from my 5b tree to test in 3b. Hope to find a male tree for 3b.
Species are defined by populations, of which there are three types: wild, landrace, and feral. Morus alba has achieved all three. Others, such as Ficus carica, never existed as wild: it is entirely human-made.
Morus rubra is nearly extinct, with only a few true specimens in repositories. Scionwood is not available. However, a couple leaf samples can be obtained by qualified individuals for tissue culture or genetic sequencing.
@smsmith has had tentative success with Kokuso in 3b, much better than Trader, still too early to say definitively though
On this, I disagree. I can point out pure rubra growing at my house and in this general area in Tennessee with no hybrids and no pure alba to be found. It is not difficult to find pure Rubra in this area. Twenty miles south, in Florence Alabama, hybrids and pure alba are the only trees that can be found. I suspect someone tried silkworm farming in that area because many of the trees appear to be pure alba. Which brings on the question, are any of the pure rubra worth propagating? I have not yet found a pure rubra that is productive enough or tasty enough to propagate. And I have looked at a lot of trees in the last 5 years. Roughly half of the trees are male which means there is nothing to indicate fruit traits. Of the remaining half, most are embedded in mixed woodland where they tend to be very low producers.
Perhaps worth adding that some very unusual plants are native to this area. One example is Carolinia Buckthorn which grows in abundance behind my house.
Actually, the two ‘Daugherty’ M.rubras came to me from another growingfruit member, selected at Montevallo, AL.
I could easily point out more than 100 pure M.rubra trees on the 20 mile drive from my home to our lakehouse, growing at woods’ edge or in fencelines along the state highway and county road.
I just returned from a quick trip to central Alabama; trees that were unmistakeably M.rubra were readily noticeable in rural areas alongside I-24, I-65, I-85, US 280, and various state and county roads in KY, TN, and AL.
I recently received results from Weston Lombard’s SARE grant-funded M.rubra project; of the half-dozen or so samples I submitted, all were determined to be pure M.rubra, with the exception of one that i thought was a hybrid, and testing confirmed that it was, indeed a hybrid.
Thanks for that information. I bought a Kokuso last year for 5b. Layering a start I can take to 3b next year.
There is no viable genetic test to verify plant species. However, there is a lot of wishful thinking.
