Mullberries from seed

[cortona]

since muleberry time is coming i wil ask to you guys if you have some uncommon muleberry i'm interested in some seeds in ecange or wathever you like!
best wishes
Emanuele

[sandbar]

I have four white mulberries growing in my fence row. They are nicely spaced about 25 feet apart. White mulberries. All are about 12' high right now.

Was mulling over the decision today about whether to cut them down or leave them.

Are they really tasty enough to harvest? How do you know when to harvest the fruit? When it falls off the tree? Does all the fruit ripen at once?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jun 25, 2011 23:35:50 GMT -5 sandbar said:

Are they really tasty enough to harvest? How do you know when to harvest the fruit? When it falls off the tree? Does all the fruit ripen at once?

My mulberries ripened fruit over a period of weeks. The whites are ready to eat when the berries turn from green to white, or to lavenderish.

To my taste-buds, white mulberries lack acid. I really like acidic fruits. Among my naturalized/feral mulberries there were huge differences in flavor from tree to tree.

[Alan]

If any of you guys harvested white fruited seed I'd be greatly indebted to you for a small amount!

[simplysilk]

Hello, I have just collected both white an black mulberries. I am wondering what is the best way to harvest the seeds for planting?
Can you remove the seeds from the berry? Or does one just use the whole berry?
Also what is the best way to store the seeds for future planting?

Thanks!
I am hoping to plant a windbreak with the white seedlings as I already have a windbreak with the Russian black mulberries. I also collect the leaves to feed to my silkworms. ;D

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The best way to harvest mulberries for planting:

Eat the fruit.
Plant the feces.

If that makes you too squeamish then you could always:

Crush the fruits.
Ferment them for 3-7 days.
Decant off the pulp.
Rinse the seeds and spread out to dry.

[Alan]

Honestly, the best way I have found to do it is to litterally just smash the fruit into your growing medium. They geminate and grow quickly!

[synergy]

Spacecase, I got the fresh red mulberry seeds , thank you ! I will post on how germination goes. Lisa

[MikeH]

From Lee Reich's Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden, pp93-95

Growing mulberries from seed is a long-term proposition, for the plants sometimes take a decade or more until their first crop. If you want to give it a try, sow seeds as soon as you extract them from the fruits, or, in the case of the white mulberry, stratify the seeds for one to three months for better germination. Give seedlings a bit of shade during the first few weeks after they emerge from the ground. Even after plants start to flower and bear fruit, exercise restraint in discarding apparently poor plants or lauding apparently good ones. Plants grown from seed are sexually unstable while they are young, bearing perhaps only male flowers one year, female flowers another year, and both types of flowers yet another year.

In the early part of the twentieth century, S. D. Willard of Geneva, New York, used a method called "sprig budding" that became widely adopted for grafting mulberries. (See Figure D.) When the bark slips (peels easily from the wood) in the spring, make a T-cut in the rootstock just as you would when T-budding. On the lower end of a scion two or three buds long, make a smooth, sloping cut. Then insert the scion into the T, and wrap and seal the graft. Other types of grafts are usually successful also. Be aware of a possible incompatibility between the white and the black mulberry, though the Russian mulberry seems to be a good rootstock for all types of mulberries.

Hardwood, softwood, and root cuttings also are suitable methods for propagating mulberries. Suggestions for enhancing the rooting of hardwood cuttings include splitting the lower ends of cuttings, or taking each cutting with a small "heel" of two-year-old wood. Softwood cuttings have been known to root without fail when taken in midsummer and treated with a rooting hormone (8,000 ppm IBA). Red mulberries are reputedly difficult to root.

A novel method for propagating mulberries was suggested in The French Gardinier, published in 1669. The instructions were to rub ripe mulberry fruits on an old rope, then bury the rope in the ground. Voila! (Mulberries are easy to propagate, but not that easy.)

I have an Illinois Everbearing that was grown from a cutting two years ago by a friend. It fruited this year. Not many but just enough to convince me to try hardwood cuttings this winter. And I'll try softwood cuttings next summer.

Mike

[cortona]

mike can you conider the idea of send some cuttings here in italy? probably the best moment are winter time and hard wood cuttings?

[MikeH]

Jul 28, 2011 17:52:01 GMT -5 cortona said:

mike can you conider the idea of send some cuttings here in italy? probably the best moment are winter time and hard wood cuttings?

Ooooh. I won't have a lot. Oh what the hell. Sure. PM me with your address. I'll take the cuttings well into winter to make sure that they are dormant. Mailing will be interesting. Between the Canadian and the Italian postal systems who knows when they'll arrive. Maybe they'll have sprouted roots.

Regards,
Mike

[MikeH]

White and red mulberry seeds - www.treehelp.com/items.asp?Cc=SD420

Note - Seeds from unapproved sources (apparently, there is now a whitelist) are being seized at point of entry in at least one EU country - Bosnia and Herzegovina. To reduce the chances of seizure should you choose to break the law, make sure that the sender and the receiver have nothing to do with plants in even the most remote way and that the package looks like any other package.

Regards,
Mike

[mnjrutherford]

Mike, grapes went through. It did take awhile. But if you figure, what goes goes, what doesn't doesn't, then you won't be terribly disappointed if it doesn't make it. On the other hand, when it does, CELEBRATE!!!

[Deleted]

Many fruitless ones are planted in my town, which seems like a waste, but, to be fair, they've been know to make a huge mess on the sidewalks and get tracked into houses.

I understand that the leaf has anti-diabetic effects and is the traditional food of the silkworm.

But, I would be particularly interested in the longer, black, Persian variety -- seemingly a cross between the red and black. I also think that longer, red ones would be interesting.

Seedlings have appeared, at random, along local fences, and the green twigs have about a 100% success rate in my planters.

[turtleheart]

i have reds and whites and hybrids. i have seed from the largest and oldest mulberry in recorded history, becuase it grows in my mother's yard. this year it shows many signs of illness, but it is already over triple its expected lifespan. the arbor society comes to measure it. i think that it is so big and long lived becuase it is a wild hybrid. if anyone wants seeds let me know. it will take a year.