‘Margaret’s Gift’
Tree is magnificent… not ripe yet
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If the fruit tastes good, I hope you are able to save scions to share with this community.
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It really seems like rubras deserve some more love and attention. I expect there are some exceptional trees out there waiting to be appreciated.
I for one am looking to graft in some rubra males so as to acquire some viable hybrid seed, hopefully with good novel genetics. From the little bit of reading I’ve done (and the little bit available, it sounds like rubra as a polllen parent is a good bet. What would be helpful is to have a rubra with know fruiting traits- perhaps a herm phenotype so that the sire isn’t a total shot on the dark.
In my case, I think being out of the range of rubras (practically speaking) and away from incursions of trashy alba types is advantageous from a breeding perspective. I’m not apt to go the route of controlled crosses, but a b it of serendipity could easily go a long way. IE, after all, was a total chance find.
I have eaten off this tree since the 1970s… and its why i have always been interested in mulberries…i have only had a few in my climate that even tasted nearly as good and none with as large fruits.
Where the tree is located and how large it is being tall and with a big canopy it is a bird sanctuary and its like watching a nature documentary that the birds somehow know when and where to be.
So its a challenge to actually even get some of the great fruits that are way up in the canopy. We used to have a long stick that was a couple of handles together to bash the limbs to get the good fruits.
I have read more up on rooting cuttings and some folks say its easy… so i am going to give green wood in sand a shot.
The guy above says grafting is a big challenge… so im not sure how that would work with scions unless you mean for rooting purposes.
I just know that regardless of how many percent Rubra it is…that i want it for myself due to how magnificent it has been and how enduring. I will only get to see maybe a decade or two of its new life…
I have no doubt that the new owners of the house will likely cut it down or way way down at some point… the limbs will be touching the house in a few years and sometimes it spills into the road… and for sure it covers the parking spot. Nothing really lives or thrives under its shade… it shades very very well.
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I have never had that much difficulty getting successful grafts of mulberry, provided that the scionwood was in good condition… most of my failures have been the result of less-than ideal scionwood - small, senescent/lack of vigor, winter damage not noticed at the time of collection, poor storage methods, etc.
It’s been a number of years since I did any, but summer T-budding has worked well for me with mulberries.
I’ve never known anyone who had any significant success rooting M.rubra cuttings.
Graft compatibility is something of a mystery. I mostly use random mulberry seedlings that pop up around the yard/orchard for rootstocks. Most are probably hybrids… some have more M.rubra character than others… one thing I’ve noticed is that M.rubra roots are orange, while M.alba and hybrids have yellow roots - not saying this is a definitive ID trait, but in my limited observations, it seems fairly constant.
I had one exceptional M.rubra selection made from east-central AL(zone 8) that was either not long-term compatible with M.alba understock here in KY or NJ (both z6), as it would only last one or two years before dying back to the rootstock. Regrafted it at least a couple of times… and the last time I was back in AL, I found the ortet was dead.
I’d hazard a guess that many of the cultivated mulberry selections were random finds, and not the result of a dedicated breeding program. IE has been previously mentioned, ‘Lawson Dawson’ is a chance seedling located 10 miles from me, I’ve received a number of ‘named’ selections(Dixie EB, Boyleston EB, David Smith EB, etc) that were also just exceptional seedling trees that someone took notice of and liked enough to name and distribute scionwood.
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The article doesnt go into this…but if i root cuttings will they be male then take years to fruit? Supposedly this is why the Red mulberry has such a hard time…is that it takes so long to become a female. Seedlings are all male?
The University of Guelph has determined that the trees start out as male flowering while young then goes through a transition to a hermaphrodite stage in which male and female flowers are on the same tree. Lastly, the tree ages to a female.
https://beesweetnature.ca/knowledge-base/the-plight-of-the-red-mulberry/
I’d like to see the U.of Guelph article… not just someone offering their interpretation of it .
I have encountered a Morus rubra that ‘switched’ genders (female to male), but I don’t know that I’m necessarily accepting the premise put forward that maturation in every M.rubra progresses from ‘male’ to ‘hermaphrodite’(monoecious/polygamodioecious) to ‘female’… which would suggest that ALL big mature M.rubra trees are ‘female’.
My suspicion is that IF you are able to root cuttings from this tree, they will be fruiting females - and begin fruiting fairly quickly. I had several mulberry grafts, placed this spring, which pushed flowers that would have become fruits if I had not promptly removed them.
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Grafting is not difficult according to several folks. They should graft easily to Morus Alba. Blake Cothron (peaceful heritage nursery) says grafting works fine.
I got a couple of different mulberry scion varieties this year believed to be Morus Rubra and they were successful in being grafted.
If the new owners don’t cut the tree down, I’d like to get in line for scionwood.
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I’d like to somehow prove that it roots from cuttings… im going to give it a try.
There is no line for scionwood… you are the first to ask.
As for the cash reward…thats not my thing. I would like to share this mulberry with the world if it has good DNA though. But i dont want it to get sent to every nursery to capitalize for themselves and not have its heritage and name attached. Its sentimental to me… and was to my mom. If you look at most of my posts i am into history and facts and truth.
Regardless of all the DNA and all that… its the toughest tree that never fails to put on a show that i have ever seen. Behind it is a city road that gets bombarded by salt… ive seen it kill the grass. It lives in pure automotive chemicals and oil and metal and glass and bricks. The soil is not really soil…its refuse and has eroded for 100 years. The house sits on a post war boom town development. Dozers scraped all the top soil down the slope to make the house seats. No good garden will grow in this soil. It also lives along a chain link fence that has been sprayed with roundup and weed killer for 40 years that i know of.
I think this tree would grow in the rubble of Chernobyl.
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Or at least there wasn’t. Count me in.
Grafting them isn’t hard. I’m almost positive you could root them with the right combination of timing, technique, and luck. Best bet would be a mist system, but that’s a serious proposition. I described this in the rooting IE thread, but pair of quart containers- one as the pot, the other the cloche- works very well for rooting cuttings. I strongly suggest using vermiculite, not sand- it’s sterile and has good balance of porosity and water capacity. Get it to field capacity before sticking the cuttings. You can stuff as many as 10 cuttings in a single container. Put them in dappled diffuse light, not direct light. Remove the cloche once a day and let things air out a bit. Shake excess water off of the cloche too.
I’m also interested in the U of Guelph article. I share @Lucky_P ’s skepticism. I think the reality is way messier than what you described, but I’m not basing that on observation by any means, just more of a gut sense of what would tend to ring true.
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Im rooting several varieties now in an opaque storage bin…kind of the same deal… i am using 3 kinds of sand, and one in pine fines along with one in my new mix…
I rooted blackberries and raspberries last fall from cuttings using garlic (weird i know)… but i had nearly 100 percent take root… and i have failed before using hormone.
I have vermiculite and DE as well… but i think i found a sand that i like…will see. I really hope pine fines work…that would be so much simpler.
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I would like some scions from this as well. I’ve got several rubra here and am always looking for more. they root fairly easily for me.
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Beautiful tree! There are many more rubra characteristics than alba…whether “pure”…only the appropriate genetic testing could say for sure.
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It is possible that there is SOME truth in their study, but most of the seemingly “pure” Morus rubra that I have been observing (some of my seedlings and perhaps a dozen of the younger seedlings in a Hammock that I frequent) haven’t displayed this tendency so far in the five or so years that I have documented their location and their sex. But I did notice that one of the monoecious rubras appeared to have fewer male flowers this spring (it is about twenty feet tall and I am guessing about thirty years old) I never saw a single male flower on my oldest rubra seedling in my yard (it has been producing for about five years). In the hammock that I was referring to, about a third of them are male, a third female, and a third monoecious. I will continue to observe them to see if the dynamics of their sexuality change. The oldest monoecious rubra I know of is near Williston Florida…it could be forty years old or more. But I have seen other mulberry (not rubra) change sex though.
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U want green wood? or dormant or what is your preference?
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dormant is much easier for me to handle- I can root some or graft onto my big tree.
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Your photos did not show up.
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Just noticed that some of the trees on the farm(with rubra traits) seem to have set a second flush of fruit. Is this a common thing with rubra? I do plan on sending in samples for testing, reposted because the pictures didnt upload
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Anyone aware of the success of this project? I’ve tried going to the North Central Region SARE website and contacting them, but no response.
I’m trying to find a source to get pure, native Morus rubra, but it’s surprisingly difficult to find ones that you can be confident are NOT hybrids with invasive mulberries.
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