Which mulberry variety is the most vigorous grower for you?
I have SH, IE, and Corral, all 4 year old grafts and growing healthy in Z6. SH is a monster, it suffers more from winter dieback, but always out grows the other 2. IE seems to grow “controllably”, good healthy growth, but not too much. Corral is growing healthy also, but considerably smaller, and more like a bush.
They all get “deer pruning”. SH responds by sending out a new shoot from the terminal bud that grows extremely fast. IE will do the same, but at a much slower growth rate. Corral will send out shoots from several of the last buds on the pruned branch, giving it a bushy form.
I have Gerardi, Silk Hope, Oscar, Lawson Dawson, Kip Parker..
Ranging from 3 to 5 years old.
Silk Hope is the most agressive grower but now it has the most length between leaf nodes. 8, 10 inches or more.
Oscar would be next most agressive grower.
Kip Parker and Lawson Dawson grow at a more mild pace… Their leaf nodes are tighter too. More like 4 or 5 inches.
Gerardi is a slow grower compared to all those.. and it has very tight leaf nodes 1 to 1.5 inches. The canopy of my Gerardi is nice looking, compact, tight, lovely.
Gerardi is in year 5.. and so far it has by far been my most agressive fruiter….
Silk Hope even though it is much larger.. is a shy bearer of fruit so far.
This year I grafted Varaha to some volunteer rootstock and the graft outgrew the rootstock in about 2 months. The scion eventually got so top heavy that it tore off of the rootstock during some heavy rain.
That Varaha graft tearing off in the rain is such a harsh lesson. Must have been going absolutely wild. Does grafting to more vigorous rootstock help manage it or does it still just run away regardless?
I grafted 3 Silk Hope and 2 Oscar to Russian Mulberry rootstock in 2025. It’s hard to believe that it was just 1 1/2 years ago. These are growing near each other in the back yard. At this point, Oscar has a clear edge.
I let four of them grow tall before tipping. These four are all ~8-10’ and have started to branch. I headed the final Oscar at ~3’ then grew four scaffolds. I headed these recently, hoping to generate more fruiting wood within reach for next year.
Here’s the Oscar. The fence is 6’ so the tree is ~9’ tall now but growing fast. Note that I removed 6-12" from each scaffold a week ago.
