North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran and Donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>]

On the 4th when we were all busy in this country, Bill Grimes
<wagrimes@sonic.net>
wrote:
Melanie from New Zealand asked CRFG the following (implied) question:

I have tried summer T budding with limited success as bleeding of M. alba
forces bud off. As we are in mid winter now, I was going to try bench
grafting some 1 year alba stock and get some callusing under way before
planting out this spring.

I do not have any experience with mulberry and was hoping one of you might
be able to address the problem of budding mulberry and bleeding.

Bill Grimes
Golden Gate Chapter, CRFG
golden_gate@crfg.org


This made me sit up and take notice.  I grafted mulberries this spring for
the first time, and got good results at first, with takes on 8 grafts.  Then
hail knocked off a couple of buds but the grafts still held, and then they
all proceeded to die off, some within weeeks, others taking a couple of
months.  I think they are all dead now.  And no, my local stocks are not
paper mulberry.  Anybody have experience with mulberries?
    Actually, my initial failure sounds like Melanie's problem.  Most of my
grafts went on small twigs or branches about 1/2" diameter, but the largest
tree was about 2" in diameter.  It wept a lot of white sap all over the
stump, and the two grafts on that one never showed any signs of life.  Donna