Mulberry Seedling project - Sweet Tart Flavor!

Excuse my ignorance but how does one save seeds from a mulberry? I'm new to mulberries. I purchased cuttings on Tice, Valdosta, Jan's Best and World's Best this year. The Valdosta is the only one looking decent. World's Best did not like up potting. The Jan's Best is very sad looking and Tice appears to be dying. I'm pretty sure the failure is bad management on my part. I rooted like fig pop method and took to long to get them out of the bags. I did however find a couple mulberry trees where I work at and took cuttings this week to try rooting.
 
Seedlings are a better option if you have a male acclimated to frosts in these middle zones 7 and 8. Tice is known to be a tropical type and can be zapped easily with late frosts and so it's one with limits. Some of the Northern ones might wake up too early as well ... if they are awake and then a late frost happens they lose wood and berries and/or they croak... and especially in pots no good for some to warm up before a freeze or frost

Valdosta is the one I think is best for the issue.. Oscar was close.. also I may have had them reversed my Valdosta plant leaves have some lobes or "thumbs" this year but more of them are spade shaped.. The one I believe was Oscar did fine with late frosts last year but this year 80s range fsrenheit followed by a freezing streak and it was poof... same with Worlds Best and Jan's Best in pots... but some that I lost would have lasted if planted in ground with cooler soil temps..

The way to get seeds is to either let a berry dry... worms will arrive and eat the berry away leaving perfext seeds lol.. I prefer to let it ripen well and then pop them out with a toothpick onto a spoon and then I can drink the berry... You can usually find one seed in each drupe and so its easy to get alot but i nticed sime varieties make fhiat seeds that are smaller and less viable.. workds besr is one and its seedlingsso far..

And then just out them onto a moist paper towel and into a bag and they sprout in a few days... as they become large enough to manage, maybe 1/2 to 1 cm, you only need to plant the root into a wetted peat pellet, give then sun, protect from critters and he ready to pot them up soon. Better to use a smoother paper towel than the dotted ones roots can grow into but even if so there's a way to separate them lol

You can also plant many into small containers, and weather them to see which do best with frost but you'll need to water those daily in the summer. I did that with Issai seeds since it's a dwarf with decent fruits but likely from up north I think... it succumbed to the frost finally this year also

superdave336 said:
Excuse my ignorance but how does one save seeds from a mulberry? I'm new to mulberries. I purchased cuttings on Tice, Valdosta, Jan's Best and World's Best this year. The Valdosta is the only one looking decent. World's Best did not like up potting. The Jan's Best is very sad looking and Tice appears to be dying. I'm pretty sure the failure is bad management on my part. I rooted like fig pop method and took to long to get them out of the bags. I did however find a couple mulberry trees where I work at and took cuttings this week to try rooting.
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I posted in another forum about Valdosta it is a winner i think I mentioned why but frankly it's suitable for a wider range of climates ... also my potted 3 gal stayed asleep through late freezes, even though we warmed up early to the 89s before freezing again...and now it's making some really nice sized berries .. most are regular size as expected for a potted plant but some swelling to 1.5 inches approx... im looking to pick two big ones tomorrow and I decided to grow the seeds out also because my backyard male alba throws alot of white berries which is what I want, a large sized white berry... the pigment is allegedly uber healthy too and they also happen to be really sweet

Anyhow I had something cool happen today ... one of my seedlings is a volunteer.. it's either one or two years but despite that, it made a single berry. I thought I would taste it and decide whether or not it was worthy to breed as it is probably crossed with candy blush.. and it was good a real sweet tart flavor, an extra juicy and flavorful berry, extra juicy too.. it still did not come off thr tree easily but appeared to be fully ripened...

The coolest part was the seeds... I got an omen to pass on through them... and noting that I already thought the seeds from Worlds Best and seedlings were large sized, these were double the size of those approximately... and so I think this one has alot of Rubra Genes which makes me think it's the offspring of Dwarf Everbearing from Logees, which is suspected the same of... unfortunatley it succumbed to late frosts easily here...

The berry from this one i liked alot more but look how the seeds arranged without any intention or effort on my part

Looks like a Flower and a Bunch of grapes to me!
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Life has been challenging lately and so these episodes are meaningful

This is the little tree thriving in a 1 gal... it's either just past it's first year or maybe second, I think it's the first and for it to have made a berry at either mark is promising
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Juicy Berry
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And then I went to check the Candy Blush Berry. Something found it and took with with a drupe or two... I managed 6 more seeds and felt lucky, being reminded that nature is wild...

This would be work for some people
 
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The third plant is close to its first ripener and im happy that it makes a white berry on a female plant... I don't care for the stem hanging off of the drupes but the way the drupes pop out is unique.

Also the berries are smallish in size but Ruby made around the same size berry last year, and just three, whereas this one made around 18 or 19 berries in this, it's first year to fruit...

Hopefully as sweet as Candy Blush and as productive as her mama berry. The Berry is Starting to blush a little too
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These are really beautiful.

My grandmother had a Mulberry tree when I was young. (We call them Gelso). It was a massive tree nearly the height of a two story house and produced a lot.... I'm curious, is this a normal growing habit? Are they difficult to keep compact from seedling? Or do you typically have to move your seedlings onto a specific rootstock to keep them under control?
 
Rootstocks do not help with Mulberry (allegedly) most dwarfing experiments still make a massive aggressive tree unless the scion has smaller genetics from what I understand but ive heard of a technique using Rubra stock manipulated in some way to ptoduce a more dearfed version of other varieties

But... you can trim Mukberry as often as you need to and Worlds best the parent is semi dwarf so easier to manage.. Valdosta seems like a less than full sized tree also.. I think 'Pollarding' is the style most end up going with
TorontoJoe said:
These are really beautiful.

My grandmother had a Mulberry tree when I was young. (We call them Gelso). It was a massive tree nearly the height of a two story house and produced a lot.... I'm curious, is this a normal growing habit? Are they difficult to keep compact from seedling? Or do you typically have to move your seedlings onto a specific rootstock to keep them under control?
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BTW guys I'm getting close to sending berries out to Ktrain but I was picking for seeds at first before I decided to protect the plant from birds and still i found good flavor.. but now maybe two weeks or so with sun obstructrd by a tree and some plastic, ive had two of the smaller berries taste watered down to me... I have also had to water the tree twice so that might have been it or perhaps less sun or both..

As mentioned something nabbed the drupes off of a berry from the other plant .. the third berry also went missing and today I found two berries on Ruby had been chewed on! There are still three that look like they'll be ready to pick tomorrow but I am having to watch them I suspect wasps in fact I should maybe go move it again meh

I have had good flavor from the last berry or two that I got seeds from it just worries me that the conditions might affect the flavor now because I have to keep them safe from critters so the one I protected it has been the best though the two mentioned were watered down with minimal flavor so just FYI but I will still send them out for trials. Jan should be getting 3 tomorrow and I will have to message her about it too..

I think the ones with more sun closer to the tip of the plant are fine and so at least two of them should be closer to better .. the other category is really good but extra productive which I think is going to be the biggest factor with Ruby and the decent size for a berry from a young plant with thin branches

BTW the berry from the third plant is coloring up too
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I'm a little late to the review game here, busy busy busy.

I have not tried tons of Mulberries and the ones I used to eat as a kid were an unknown variety.
The tree was massive and we used to climb it and sit on a huge branch to pig out.

As for the Ruby, no tartness to speak of.
They were slightly sweet in the beginning, then a slight berryish flavor (can't pin it down) a very slight earthy flavor with a semi sweet after taste.
They were very soft, possibly from going through the mail being closed up in a box for a few days.
I'd say small in size but as the tree matures this could change.
A nice big bowl of these would be a treat! lol

Thanks for including me in this trial.
Be cool to see how they progress.
 
ktrain said:
I'm a little late to the review game here, busy busy busy.

I have not tried tons of Mulberries and the ones I used to eat as a kid were an unknown variety.
The tree was massive and we used to climb it and sit on a huge branch to pig out.

As for the Ruby, no tartness to speak of.
They were slightly sweet in the beginning, then a slight berryish flavor (can't pin it down) a very slight earthy flavor with a semi sweet after taste.
They were very soft, possibly from going through the mail being closed up in a box for a few days.
I'd say small in size but as the tree matures this could change.
A nice big bowl of these would be a treat! lol

Thanks for including me in this trial.
Be cool to see how they progress.
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Funny you say that, I have no deep experience with mulberries either but I do still have the childhood tree I grew up with haha. My memories similar, growing up we would climb the tree and pick from the tallest branches! 😂 fingers stained purple all summer haha

Here’s the tree now, I’m sure it’s nothing special but it’s very sweet and about 30ft tall at minimum. Glad to see it produce every year and now my little one can do the same when she starts walking 😂
 

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BNaula1 said:
Funny you say that, I have no deep experience with mulberries either but I do still have the childhood tree I grew up with haha. My memories similar, growing up we would climb the tree and pick from the tallest branches! 😂 fingers stained purple all summer haha

Here’s the tree now, I’m sure it’s nothing special but it’s very sweet and about 30ft tall at minimum. Glad to see it produce every year and now my little one can do the same when she starts walking 😂
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So cool!

And yeah,,,purple hands and faces! lol

I miss that tree, I often wonder if it's still there, the house we lived in burned down many years ago.
That was up north in Indiana.
 
Thanks much @ktrain 🙏 I was most interested in an unbiased opinion and same story I have not trialed alot, most of them i have not experienced ..but so far it stands out for me... admittedly not consistent but it was better than the standard dwarf everbearing and Teas to my palate, and a notch behind Valdosta with one that came really close

The experience has been dramatically different for me when I just pop a berry vs juicing them on a spoon to squeeze all the seeds out but I'm very happy thst it's flavorful and I'm anxious to see what kind of productivity I get next year... also I admit the fruit quality has been variable maybe partly due to me hiding the plant drim birds which limits sun but ive also had a better one since then and a disappointing one also...

And so time will tell.

The ones I sent to Jan got squished and abrobed by the cotton but ive still got 10 mor berries and sending more next week to see ...

FYI Valdosta was just sweeter but with small berries in year one... Ruby made three much smaller ones last year which was its second but mixed sizes this year and the ripening period is wide and the hang time is long so maybe it will prove to be a good thing .. Hopefully next year more consitent and competitive with second year Valdosta berries they've been so good and very consistently so...

I got excited that I raised something that seemed even close to me lol I will update on the progress of the plant... I'll be trimming the top off when berries finish and attempting to propagate as well as testing to see if that causes it to fruit again.. fingers crossed..

so far it's 3 feet tall plus a few inches of thinly branched tree but that stands just over 2' because it leans all the way over without staking since I was afraid that would knock berries off prematurely.. I am definitely looking forward it its maturity and improvement over time
 
ktrain said:
So cool!

And yeah,,,purple hands and faces! lol

I miss that tree, I often wonder if it's still there, the house we lived in burned down many years ago.
That was up north in Indiana.
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Here’s that Mulberry tree I was telling you about haha finally got some time to drive down and take pictures
 

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ktrain said:
Wow that's loaded!
Very nice tree.
Those berries remind me of the o es from my childhood.
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Yeah it’s atleast 30 years old 😂 and about 25-30ft tall aswell. It’s definitely producing a lot right now, and that’s with the birds and squirrels getting their fair share aswell
 
BNaula1 said:
I can get you some cutting this fall if you want to try your hand at it again. I can send plenty so lots of trial and error room :)
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Sure that would be awesome. I currently have some cuttings from a wild red mulberry I took at work. Found a couple trees in the woods there. I might dig one up this winter. I do have a Valdosta that survived.
 
I like Morus Nigra's tart/sweet complex flavor, but it is not very cold tolerant even for zone 8 in Dallas. I have/had grown Black Beauty, Persian, King James, Persian Seedling & Black Beauty seedling (BBS gave 2-3 fruit in the 2nd season. I stuck a lemongrass in the Persian seedling pot and it got really big, bigger than PS itself so that probably didn't help)

I lost most of the upper grafted limbs of Hmor9 on a local seedling to the late Feb freeze. Being a vigorous variety, it grew itself back by now, but no fruit this year. It did give 2 fruits in the first year when I grafted it (just 2-3 months prior). So, I grafted the PS and BBS onto the tree as well but no luck this time.

I collected some local seedlings, thinking to keep them for grafting purpose. But they are too thin anyway, so I just grow them mostly to look at. 😅

I also have a Shangrila, which is quite big (well, not in mulberry world though) and I lost 80-90% of the fruit to the wind gust. It was totally loaded and then the wind carried them all away.

I am interested in sweet/tart flavor as mulberries are typically too clogging sweet to me. I didn't climb mulberry trees as the ones I met in the wild were way too tall (35ft+). I used to carry a long extended pole with a bucket and a tarp to knock them off the lower branches of the trees. Some of the trees bear white fruit, some black.
 
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