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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 6, 2022 15:08:33 GMT -6
Sounds like good advice to me.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jun 14, 2023 22:28:41 GMT -6
I have a healthy male mulberry that pollinates 2 mulberry shrubs in the fence line. Last week I discovered one is a white mulberry and the other is a red. I hope to clone from the two females.
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Post by macmex on Jul 12, 2023 9:56:05 GMT -6
I just realized that I left folks hanging (see p. 5 of this thread). All the cuttings I stuck in the ground, as well as all those Ron stuck in the ground, flopped. We didn't get any cuttings to root.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 14, 2023 12:58:28 GMT -6
I think our failure to root those cuttings last year had a lot to do with the extended drought and 108° heat of last summer. They might make it in a normal year (if we ever see another one of those in our lives).
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Post by macmex on Jul 14, 2023 13:02:37 GMT -6
Well, I should have plenty of prunings to experiment with in the coming year. We should try it again. Also, Ron, if you can find a wild mulberry in a place you'd like an Illinois Everbearing Mulberry tree, I can help graft it next spring. I truly believe I've figured it out now. It's way better that the recipient tree be established in place when the graft is attached.
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Post by macmex on Sept 8, 2023 13:01:29 GMT -6
I thought I'd take a minute to mention something that I've learned.
This is a picture of mulberry seedlings that came up in a garden at the university where I work. They're in an out of the way place, so I left them this summer. However, once the coolness of fall sets in, I can move them to a permanent location.
Now remember, 50% of mulberry seedlings are male, and will produce no fruit. It takes around 6 years from seed for a mulberry to fruit, if it's going to. So what in the world would I do with these?
Well, in one more year their trunks will be between 1/2" and 3/4" in diameter. Then, I can graft a proven fruit producing mulberry onto them. A graft can take as little as one more year to begin fruiting. This has something to do with the grafted wood being "mature."
I need to get another photo of the graft I did this spring. It's incredible how it has grown. I bet I have 5' of growth on that graft! The challenge is going to be getting it dug out of the fence, where the seedling had volunteered, and that, without damaging the graft. I need to get enough root for it to recover and grow in a new location.
Lessons I've learned: 1) Don't dig up mulberry seedlings in order to graft onto them right away. Whenever I've done that they've died. I'm not saying it can't work but it hasn't worked for me. 2) Graft onto trees that are already established and growing where you want a fruiting mulberry. 3) Timing is crucial for successful grafting. One needs to cut the scions before they start to bud, storing them in damp towels and plastic, in the refrigerator, until grafting time. Then, one grafts onto the tree which is receiving the scion(s) when it begins to break buds. My theory on this is that the budding tree has abundant sap flowing and the dormant (refrigerated) scion is more resilient to the shock of grafting because its needs are significantly less than what the budding sapling can supply. 4) This year I did a graft significantly later than the first budding of the tree receiving the scion. It almost didn't take. In fact when the scion did bud out I had already given up hope for it. Yet it did bud and might have survived if I hadn't broken the new growth off while trying to examine it. Still, the new growth I saw was puny compared with the graft I'd done early on.
So, I think I'm going to have a grafted mulberry to plant in a select location on my place. This will increase our mulberry production a great deal. If anyone local would like to graft an Illinois Everbearing Mulberry on their own place, start looking now, before the leaves fall off, and mark out a seedling you can transplant to where you'd like a fruiting mulberry tree. Then, come spring (this coming spring or the following, depending on the diameter of the trunk), I can help graft in some good wood.
If you're reading this and you're not local, I might be able to send you some scion wood in the winter.
Am I missing anything? I have been learning about this over such a long time with so many false starts that I almost feel like starting a whole new thread on it!
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Post by rdback on Sept 26, 2023 9:34:18 GMT -6
macmex, your post about Mulberry Tea caused me to do some general research on the mulberries found in my area. While doing so I stumbled across the following info that I found interesting, so I thought I'd post it here.
- Red mulberry was used to treat ailments by Native Americans. The sap was used to treat ringworm. The Cherokee made a tea from the leaves to treat dysentery, weakness and difficulty urinating. The Comanche also used the fruit as a source of food.
- Choctaw Indians and many other tribes uses the fibers from the inner bark of young mulberry shoots to weave cloaks.
- The fruits are edible and can be used for jellies, jams, and wines. They are not sold commercially because the fruit has a very short shelf life. However, unripe fruit and sap from all parts of the plant have low toxicity, which can result in hallucinations and stomach upset.
- The female flowers are wind pollinated and do not require cross-pollination.
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Post by macmex on Sept 26, 2023 10:25:25 GMT -6
Thanks! Looks like all good info. I'm harvesting a tray of leaves every day or two, drying them whole, for the winter. My wife tried the tea and didn't think quite as highly of it as did I. She still thought it was okay.
Pretty soon I will attempt to transplant my grafted mulberry (the one I grafted this spring) into a permanent location. Goodness! I think that tree has grown nearly 5' this summer!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 27, 2023 10:38:55 GMT -6
I have a couple of young, wild, mulberry trees here that are 10' feet tall or taller that both need to come out or be grafted, or at the very least they need to be pruned so if they ever do fruit I won't have to use a ladder to reach the limbs.
They were one of the only fruit trees the grasshoppers didn't molest. That and the peach trees. Grasshoppers will eat the fruit off peach trees, but they don't enjoy eating the leaves.
I used to think grasshoppers didn't like pawpaw trees, but that was before they killed all but 3 of them this summer by stripping both the leaves and the bark.
Which reminds me; can one tell male from female by the leaf on mulberry trees? Mine have two distinctly different type leaves. One style is oval with a sawtooth edge, the other is more jagged, kind of like oak or maple.
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Post by macmex on Oct 9, 2023 8:37:16 GMT -6
Ron, I will set aside scion wood to graft those trees with you in early Spring. I only just now noticed your post. The two different leaf styles are probably because of maturity. Immature mulberry trees, grown from seed, have a cut leaf which almost resembles a fig tree leaf. More mature mulberries have a more rounded leaf. Interestingly, when one grafts onto a young (cutleaf) mulberry, using mature scion wood from a fruiting tree, the resulting growth has the rounded (mature) leaf style.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 22, 2023 17:06:41 GMT -6
George,
I just now saw your post above. That would be great! We haven't had a good producing mulberry since we moved here. Back in Hulbert we had mulberry trees that fruited like crazy, but not here. I miss them. as a kid, we used to park our '65 Chevy truck under the mulberry trees along the lane and use it for a picking platform as we drove along eating almost as many as we picked. Those were the days!
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Post by macmex on Oct 23, 2023 5:36:10 GMT -6
Growing up in NJ, I remember my brother Tim and I would stop under mulberry trees, usually on our way back from fishing. It was a little less than a mile walk and we'd wait until we were famished and thirsty before we'd head home. By then it was hot too. So, the mulberry trees were a welcome excuse to stop and rest, catching some shade and a snack!
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