@Livinginawe, @Drew51, @carot @chriso and others who want:
Now I have got THE SEEDS!
I have talked to a man, who isn’t actualy a owner of the mother tree, but gave me a permission to go in and to collect some fallen fruits from the ground. So I have more than 200 fresh seeds from Morus nigra.
Everyone, who wants seeds - PM me and I will send seeds in an envelope for free. I think the seeds will be enough for 5-6 members.
EDIT: The seeds are sent. No more seeds, sorry.
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Definitely count me in…that is, if you get less than 5 or 6 people responding. I don’t want to take seeds away from someone else that hasn’t grown Morus nigra from seed, since I have four seedlings from “Chriso’s Lebanon” seeds. Your seeds are bigger than his by about a millimeter, and come from a different region and perhaps have some different characteristics to offer for surviving here.
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Speeking about seeds, they need 60-100 days moist cold stratification to germinate. For more read this article:
www2.ib.uj.edu.pl/abc/pdf/47_2/023-26.pdf
I’m not bothered with GA3, but stratification is a must.
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I have not grown Morus nigra, but nothing is harder than doing Rubus seeds, and I have. Not only do you need stratification you need scarification with sulfuric acid. I now have a new raspberry cultivar “Irene” from my own breeding efforts. Currently I have a number of Ficus carica seedlings. They will be going under lights this winter. I also have prunus seedlings too, three of them from an intentional cross of Arctic Glo with Indian Free.
Thanks much for the seeds, and info.
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That is probably a contributing factor in why so many claim they are sterile…They don’t have the patience to wait that long.
Do you know where the pollen originated that fertilized the mother? Peter Coles of the Morus Londinium Project in Great Britain was claiming that the seeds of Morus nigra were sterile because he had never seen a seedling plant…but I believe it must be the lack of pollinators there in London.
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I believe some of the individual plants are self-fertile. Here are’nt any polinators /nigras/ in 100 miles away.
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Are you saying that this Morus nigra is an apomictic plant (a plant capable of producing viable seeds without pollination)? I have read that most apomictic plants are polyploids (Morus nigra is highly polyploidy)…Or are you just suggesting that this particular tree is monoecious (having male and female flowers on the same plant)? If it is an apomictic plant, the seedling plants will be identical clones of the mother…Either way, this is very intriguing.
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I really don’t know. I haven’t observe the catkins. My seedlings differ from each other. Is this an evidence for or against something? I have no clue on that.
Off Topic: I have got one goumi (elaeagnus multiflora) plant. I have reed that it’s partially self-fertile. I want more fruits, but there are no other plants. Now I grow one small seedling from this plant for better pollination. But if these two plants are genetically identical this will not take effect? Or I am wrong?
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Even if the seedling was from a self-pollinated mother plant the seedling is not a clon and therefore cross pollination should be possible. Or you could use some other interesting elaeagnus for pollination. I planted a seedling of eleagnus umbellata (Turdus) for cross pollination with my elaeagnus multiflora.
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@Livinginawe might be pertaining to the phenomenon in which there’s no meiosis involved. Mangosteen is one of them which bears seeds that are supposedly not genetically different from the tree they came from. The ovules seem to be self-fertile, like ‘immaculate conception’ among komodo dragon lizards, except that with mangosteens, there aren’t any rearranging of chromosomal gene pairs.
and if actually self-pollinated, the pollen apparently weren’t capable of meiosis either. All of them–clones and drones.
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I think you are right. That is a very interesting phenomenom I didn’t know about. But with my answer I was only referring to the off topic question of pileta about cross pollination in elaeagnus multiflora.
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When I wash the seeds, all of them floated on the surface. I decide to cut several of them. The furst one was empty, but next was full. So part of the seeds are empty (like Jujube seeds). I hope most of them are viable.
Later on I test morus alba seeds (from frosen fruits) adn they all floated again. Maybe this is normal with morus not to sink.
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That’s been my experience with Morus nigra seeds as well, most seeds float.
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Hi @pileta. Just wanted to report back that several of the seeds you sent me have germinated. It’s pretty awesome to have these so thanks very much. I’ll post some pictures when they get a bit bigger.
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Very interesting read, thanks everyone for sharing.
I’m very happy to hear this. It’s not easy to grow during winter, so maybe artificial light will be needed.
https://extension2.missouri.edu/G6515
Keep us posted!
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I’ve got them under lights and on a seedling starter heat mat. I’ll keep them inside until late April. Thanks
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As always, thanks for the updates @Livinginawe ! It just bears repeating-- your approach is without peer. Hoping that some academe or perhaps usda collaborates with you on your endeavor and knowledge-sharing
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I Just wanted to give an update, I got seeds from pileta and two have sprouted. I have a lot of projects going on so I’m not going to try and sprout more till the spring, and outside. I don’t have that many seeds left, most failed for me. I’m sure it was me, at least I got a couple to grow. I hope I have one of each a boy and a girl!
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Congrats for your new family! The first set of seeds he sent never arrived…but he was extremely kind and sent me some more seeds. I put about a third through a 100 day stratification and then planted in a mixture that has worked well for me with other mulberry seeds…Its been over three weeks and I haven’t seen anything (The foreign postal services don’t irradiate suspicious packages do they?). I had trouble sprouting some seeds from forum member Chriso, so I treated six seeds with 1000 ppm Gibberellic acid and four of the seeds sprouted. So now I am doing the same with some more of pileta’s seeds…It has only been three days, so I will let you know. Meanwhile the four nigra seedlings I do have are just now budding out for spring!
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