Read the description of Cliff England’s Taylor #1 Mulberry, it says cold hardy to zone 5.
Taylor #1 Mulberry – NEW!!! – Naturally Grown | Peaceful Heritage Nursery
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There are a bunch of cultivars that handle conditions here @george. Taylor is one I havent yet grown. Actually grafted it a few weeks ago and it pushed but fizzled as mulberries can sometimes do. I only had a couple of buds worth. Those hardy ones I had in my basement were bench grafts growing in containers and I wanted to size them up for a year before setting them out. Im glad i did because this past winter and the late hard frost in mid-May were especially hard on mulberries. Ive been planting them out as time allows. Theyre nice looking trees at this point.
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@hobilus
It is true that much of the range of M. macroura and F. palmata in India is in upland country, some of it over 4,000’ in elevation. But it’s also true that a good part of this range has latitudes in the lower 20°s and the record low temperatures are above freezing.
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@george
The Taylor mulberries were sprouted from seeds of Russian Morus alba, misnomer tatarica. The native range is from Georgia eastward across the Asian Steppes.
Here’s someone advertising zone 3 hardiness.
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How viable is DMOR9 in the coastal PNW? my brother loves out there. I might try rooting him a cutting. Seems like it would root well. Scions kept better than other Morus- last years are looking reasonably fresh in the inner sanctum of my scionwood fridge. They seemed to have callused and made some root intials from their lenticles
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I’m growing DMOR9 for the first time this year. Many grafts took but it is unclear how cold tolerant they will be.
Pakistan mulberry grows into a large tree but white Pakistan can be killed back in cold years.
Red Shahtoot - which may be the same or similar to DMOR9 dies back here until the tree gets mature.
I’ve heard DMOR9 is very hard to root. Grafting is so easy I got nearly 100% takes.
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Im not familiar with this vendor but they seem to make some extraordinary hardiness claims which, if true, would maybe justify their high prices. Mind you, Im an unabashed cheap skate
Regarding macroura, are you implying that hardiness prospects of crosses might not be promising? Alba and macroura seem to overlap in their range of cultivation, so perhaps a hardy hybrid would have already come along if That were likely. A guy cant help but fiddle though
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Me neither. I think their claims are ridiculous.
Yes, I think it’s just bait for expats and enthusiasts in colder zones.
Nothing wrong with that!
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It looks like nigra to me:
And here’s the Kaester graft I did a little later with scionwood from @ramv, which is still growing pretty actively despite the cooler nights recently:
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Agree they both look like nigra to me
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Interestingly, the “Kaester” graft took more damage than the “Persian” from Fruitwood in our first freeze (low about 30°F/-1.0°C). It looks like the issue was the “Kaester” was still actively expanding a flush, while the Fruitwood “Persian” had already gone dormant.
Kaester:
Persian black mulberry from Fruitwood:
They were grafted around the same time (one week apart) this summer, but Kaester did take longer to get going. I’m still surprised it didn’t halt that flush when it cooled down last month.
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Nigra mulberries are strange. My Kaesters have gone yellow and nearly dormant. Most other varieties have too.
But Black Beauty wants to continue to grow and is still putting out flushes of growth. Thankfully it didn’t get frosted out in the cold.
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It appears that snails and slugs really like the taste of frost damaged M. nigra leaves… they aren’t on any of the albas or the figs nearby with similar levels of leaf damage, but here’s what Kaester looks like:
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Oh no. That looks pretty bad
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They only seem to be eating the leaves that had frost damage anyhow, so I’m not too concerned, hopefully they leave the stems and dormant buds alone!
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Have you considered sprinkling some diatomaceous earth in order to control the slugs and snails? My local Tractor Supply Company sells large bags of it and I always keep it on-hand.
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I take it you’re not very familiar with the slug/snail situation in the Pacific NW? There are hundreds of slugs and snails from dozens of different species in every square foot of vegetation for hundreds of miles around, there’s no hope in really controlling them. You can sometimes use baits and copper-rimmed raised beds to get a small area slug-free, but it’s a lot of work and not entirely effective either. This is their domain! Especially once the rainy season starts, and that’s well underway now.
But like I said, they aren’t attacking healthy leaves on the mulberries, so even though it looks like something from a horror film, they are just eating leaves that were already killed by frost. At least that’s better than how they devour bean seedlings in spring, or how they eat all the new leaves on pawpaws in spring too. I’m happy to let them eat dead leaves as long as they don’t touch the dormant buds, and so far they aren’t on the mulberry.
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Wow, I didn’t realize that. The one week that I spent in Portland was completely sans rain and I guess that those invertebrates must have been in hiding as a result.
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I mean it’s possible I was exaggerating slightly for effect, but they really are a major part of the temperate rain forest ecosystem here.
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