I use it for flavoring sauces and desserts 
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Hello Richard, how are you? Congratulations for your trees, your great work and this beautifull thread! I know how it is… one by one! 
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Hi Luis, thank you and great to see you on this site.
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Thank’s a lot my friend! Yes i like it a lot! 
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It’s funny how in dry climates, you plant in a crater, but in a wetter climate we plant on a mound!
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Yes, and over the years I’ve seen people in both places do the opposite and watch their trees die. 
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Richard, how is your Black Beauty mulberry doing? Is it fruiting, what does it taste like, and how big is the fruit?
Do you have any experience with the Persian mulberry? If so, how does the Black Beauty mulberry compare?
I planted a Black Beauty mulberry 2 years ago and while the tree is growing well, the fruit is very small and doesn’t taste tart & wine sweet like the Persian mulberry. I am wondering if the size & taste will improve as I had chosen this variety as a Persian mulberry like variety that was smaller. If taste and size do not improve, I’d like to pull it out and plant a traditional Persian mulberry.
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The Black Beauty I planted was Morus nigra grafted on Morus alba rootstock. It grew like a monster and my wife Janet didn’t care for the fruit, so I removed it.
The “Persian Mulberry” offered by sellers is usually M. alba which is native to China. It came west on the silk road millennia ago. “Alba” refers to the color of the bark. The fruit has a long stem and varies in color.
Meanwhile, the mulberry native to Persia is M. nigra. It is found as a shrub along creeks although 50+ year-old specimens under cultivation can be tree size. The fruit has a short stem, is black when ripe, and often fat like a boysenberry.
Then there is M. rubra, native to North America. The name refers to its red bark. The fruit has a medium to long stem and is dark when ripe. It grow wild throughout the midwest and mid-south. It has also hybridized with trees brought from Europe. Unscrupulous sellers will label it as a cultivar of one of the other species.
Here’s the M. nigra shrub I recently planted:
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I’m seeing a M. nigra shrub listed as a Persian mulberry on Dave wilson nursery’s website. So this is probably an accurately classified Persian mulberry yes? I’m persian and I grew up eating 2 types of mulberries - one was white and I wonder if that’s what nurseries are selling as m.alba. There is the “toot” mulberry which is a white persian mulberry and the “shahtoot” mulberry (or king of berries) and is black Persian mulberry. I’m looking for that black version.
Can you describe what the Black Beauty fruit tasted like?
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First of all, most professional pomologists will agree that a plant labeled “Persian Mulberry” could be M. alba or M. nigra. They’ll also agree on the traits of each of the cultivars of those species.
In my experience, if you want M. nigra you’ll need to go to a nursery and examine it – especially to make sure it’s not grafted on M. alba, which some suppliers call Russian Mulberry.
To my tastes, M. nigra tastes similar to some blackberry cultivars.
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Get a Morus nigra ‘Noir of Spain’ tree from Whitman Farms. It’s one of very few sources of proven Morus nigra. Here is the fruit from my tree (planted Nov 2016):
Alternatively, get M. nigra scions from a CRFG scion exchange in January and graft them on any M. alba rootstock.
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Yes, that’s the correct fruit!
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In R.S.Martin’s book he only covers pruning fig trees that will set one main crop. While he has a second section on trees that will set breba and main crop he doesn’t write anything on how to prune them.
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I am assuming the final height of 8’ includes the shoots that grow every year, fruit and get renewal 1/3rd head back for next year. Can you explain what do you mean by “sufficient infrastructure” is it something like a certain number of 3rd scaffolds that will grow fruiting shoots.
@Oregon_Fruit_Grow
The structure I desire for figs is different than most other genera. It also varies between fig cultivar growth habits.
For vigorous common (not San Pedro) figs, after two winters of starter growth I cut them to 16" of trunk – perhaps with a few side lobes (not scaffolds, but previously terminated whips). In the Spring the stump of sorts will begin sprouting shoots. I remove any headed sideways or down. By mid summer they will be 4’-5’ and late summer 8’ loaded with main crop figs. There’s some photos in my Osborn Prolific thread.
For dense, slower growing figs such as VdB – my scaffolds are all at 12"-14" above the soil. Treatment of new year sprouts is much the same. I also maintain a scaffold perimeter, plus thin out whips growing in a direction that interferes with other plants or walkways. All new growth is taken back to the scaffolds every winter. From today:
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Thank you. My original question was regarding stone fruits on this comment of yours. my bad I should have quoted the entire comment. This post is informative, helps to reduce my fig tree height next winter.
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@Oregon_Fruit_Grow
For stone fruits I follow R.S. Martin’s recommendations. When an older tree needs to “regroup” I’ve been known to use a small power-saw to reshape the tree.
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Im glad to see you post so many photos of how you are training/pruning your Katy apricot. I have one as well on it’s first leaf in my yard, so 3 years old.
I was curious if it was normal for a stone fruit tree to set branches that are literally at 0 degrees (horizontal) to the ground. Mine has several lower limbs like that. They actually are negative angles as they approach the ground.
Anyway it’s nice to see you describe how they fruit and why you prune as you do. I don’t see any flower buds on mine for next year, so I’m perhaps another year away from seeing for myself how/where the fruit develops.
Next to Katy I have a Cot-n-Candy aprium.
I’m wondering if fruiting of an aprium follows that of an apricot like Katy or if it fruits more like a plum. Obviously the parentage is more on the apricot side, but looking at how the tree is growing it looks more like my flavor grenade pluot.
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Don’t let potential scaffolds do that. Prune the branch close to but before the downward turn, about 1 or 1.5 inches after an upward pointing leaf or branch (bud if winter). If not a potential scaffold or fruit spur, remove it entirely (flush with the trunk).
The growth and fruiting habit of mine is halfway between my Katy apricot and Beauty Plum.
Mine has developed sluggishly until this year. Not sure what was going on – maybe it noticed I took out a nearby peach that succumbed to crown rot. From my observations this year it has been plum-like but time will tell.
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