Morus nigra mulberry?

It still would be useful to cross with Black Beauty, Noir of Spain and other nigra cultivars.
We don’t have any male nigras here.
It is from zone 6, but in Bulgaria that area is slightly warmer than mine. Still it should grow well in zone 7, not just survive, but thrive. Many of us in the colder zones can’t enjoy this species
Earlier in this thread is an article or two. In Bulgarian run through Google translate. It’s about the original tree.

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Hopefully one of the two is female, it’s going to be a few years. At that time if worthy I will make scion available. Burnt Ridge Nursery sells Russian rootstock. I put one in the ground at my cottage. Conditions are worse there. I plan maybe next year to graft to it as a test of how it does in this environment. My mother tree will be kept with the figs, as it was last winter in the garage where the low is 20F at worst. The photos of both specimens are after they leafed out this year. They seem to do great in the garage.
Last year I bought two of the Russian mulberry seedlings (Morus alba tatarica) and I put Kokusa Korean, Beautiful Day, Oscar, Wellington, and Sweet Lavender on the two rootstocks, which had multiple central leaders. It was more an experiment to see how easy they were to graft. Mulberries it turns out are extremely easy to graft, all took. All have fruit this year. They are in 20 gallon root pouches and will stay there as an experiment to keep them small. I have no place left to plant a huge mulberry tree. I left them outside all winter. I had some tip dieback, but all survived. All are fruiting. I also have in a container Silk Hope with Geraldi grafted unto it. I left 2 branches of Silk Hope to grow out for now, but might let Geraldi take over the whole thing. If it stays dwarf, I may plant this out.

keep everyone here posted. It is undoubtedly a long, tedious process, but if you manage to get a female, and get it to fruit in colder regions of usa, what once was a tedious process automatically becomes a legacy

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thanks to the generous folks on here, it looks like i have a bunch of illinois everbearing cuttings that rooted. i also grafted some on my russian. going to plant some out at my property i manage and probably share the rest as I’m really out of room here. hopefully the grafts do well as they are on a z3 hardy tree. I’m excited to try mulberries!

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Here are few morus nigra pictures.
Can someone conform these catkins are female in different stage of growth or there are male among them?

N02

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I don’t see any male catkins…Is this a nigra you grew from seed?

Yeah it’s fruit, cool! You for sure got a female. Very cool looking! Hope mine is female, but I’ll take a male. I have 2 so my odds are a little better with two.

I’ve got my potted Nigra, which btw looks fantastic this year, so if you get a male we’ve got an easy way to try propagation…

Did the sweet lavender cuttings graft well? Mine still hasn’t woken up (which doesn’t worry me as we’ve had a cold spring and my Illinois Everbearing hasn’t woken yet either. Kokuso and Beautiful Day both have great growth pushing as of this week.

just out of curiosity, from where did you get the seeds?

Scott

Cool, Stud service! I mention tht as I’m breeding my crazy Aussie. My wife wants to keep the bloodline, so we want pick of the litter. The bitch will be ready next month to mate (sorry I had to say that)_:slight_smile:

I sent those out, hopefully they will! If not mine should be big enough. I grafted your sweet lavender last year, but I didn’t have enough wood. to harvest scion. I don’t like the graft on mine it is still weak looking. Worry it might still fail. But It has broken dormancy even has fruit.

From Pileta who is in Bulgaria, we have seedlings from the same tree. Now I know what to look for! That tree produced both male and female flowers as it was in trouble with a fungal infection and went into survival mode by producing male flowers. So the genetics are from that tree. Not another nigra in site, as it is in zone 6. This tree is very special.
So far no signs of fruit. I heard seedlings can take a bit to fruit.

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My centenary nigra, never saw seedlings anywhere near it

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That’s good news, probably very healthy. I sure hope I get to taste nigra fruit!
The Bulgarian nigra has one seedling under it according to the news reports I read. So it was successful in replacing itself. The seedling went through at least one winter too, I think 2-3 actually. Again in zone 6!

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our Bailey is due next week. we saw 6 puppies in the X-ray last week. vet said maybe 8! she’s blue heeler/ border collie mix mated to a pure red heeler. should be some nice looking pups! :wink:

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No, this nigra is not mine.
From my about dozen seedlings survived only 3:

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Wow, sorry to hear that but three is plenty! Hope they do well for you.

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keep it going brother, nice work. You might end up with a female nigra after all, since the male flower you got on the newly grafted tree might be just a response to the stress.

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I ran into a fruit nursery down here in Orlando. (Ive been visiting my brother)

Lots of stuff i will never have the necessary heat to properly ripen. Lychees were tempting, though.

The nursery had mulberries. No labelling as to what kind. The pesky (but unhelpful) employee had no idea what kind it was. I had asked if he knew if it was an alva, rubra or nigra. I got the standard reply, "well the fruit is dark-purple/black) are internodes of nigra grown in warmer climates still short?

Im coming home empty-handed (which is not surprising as i just have a duffle bag for clothes) ive brought back lots over the years. Bamboos, citrus (central Fl has becone strict anout not alloqing citrus to keave the area) even papaya. (Damn now i wish i had gotten another papaya)

Scott

Yeah I used to bring stuff back from Canada Like Cupid! Oh well! Mine died.

I don’t know, I have seen some big trees though. So they must at some point begin to widen apart.

My two seedlings continue to grow… They are in a growth spurt at present. They seem to go in and out of them for no apparent reason?

These two seedlings were treated the same. Sprouted the same day, go figure?

Both now have a nice southern exposure and on warm cement all summer.
No sign of what sex yet? My non nigra mulberries all have ton’s of fruit on them, little plants too. No fruit here.

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Thank you, will do my very best.

I know they are able to change sex. I grafted this tree in 2016 I think. Last year I visited the "father"tree again and sadly it had been cut down. It was quite a shock to me cause the tree obviously was healthy and old. It towered above a walkway so I figured they maybe didn’t like the mess from falling fruits on the walkway. I didn’t witness any fallen fruits cause it was late in the growing season. Now I think maybe they cut the tree down cause it produced male flowers only. But on the other hand the tree obviously was not there for fruit production to begin with.

No matter why they cut that majestic tree down. I now have one more reason to grow it. That is to preserve that specific tree (its genes).

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I just ordered 1 oz of Morus Nigra seeds from https://www.treeshrubseeds.com; they list count of seeds with their weight, Morus Nigra is 217,000 per Lb, Morus Alba 235,000 per Lb, and Morus Alba Tatarica is 300,000 seeds per Lb.

It sounds authoritative… of course, big Morus Nigra seeds could be almost the same weight as smaller Morus Alba…

I’ll share pictures here.

Here is picture of (fake Morus Nigra?) seeds from Europe, Safflax, on left side - their seeds, on on right - seeds from Turkey (seller calls it “Sour Black Mulberry”):

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That’s great news…Thanks for posting a source which sells what appears to be real Morus nigra. Let us know how they germinate.

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