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nafex - RE: [NAFEX] mulberry .........

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  • From: Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [NAFEX] mulberry .........
  • Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:41:01 -0600

Interesting story, Naomi.

We started planting mulberries, mainly as a result of my wife's fond remembrance of sitting in the branches of a large tree in her neighbor's yard in Elizabethtown KY, eating the berries along with the birds. The owners waited until she went away to college to remove that tree because they knew how much she enjoyed it - so, I never got a chance to sample the berries from that one, but there were a number of them growing along the creekbank and in the woods behind her mother's house - but none of those were anything to write home about - most I encountered were the bland, insipid, white-fruited types.
There was a particularly prolific and tasty lavendar-fruited M.alba in the yard of the farmhouse we lived in near Rocheport MO, while I was in grad school at MU, and the kids (well, me, too) used to love to go out and graze on that one when it was in fruit. I still have fond memories of my kids toddling around with purple-stained hands & faces - and diapers.

Someone mentioned Pakistan mulberry. AJ Bullard discussed this one in a POMONA article(Summer '98, if I remember correctly) years ago. He indicated that in its native Islamabad, 28F was the lowest temperature it had ever been exposed to, so was 'iffy' for zones 7 & colder. On his recommendation, when I got one, I planted it with the graft union below ground level. It froze back to the ground every winter for three year - and they weren't all that tough, as KY winters go. It would re-sprout and grow 8-10 ft each year, but never fruited for me, so I took it out.
I've since gotten some Pakistan scions and high-worked them about 6-7 ft up in an unnamed M.albaXrubra hybrid which is grafted onto M.alba rootstock. Spring should tell whether or not high-working will allow this and some other 'tender', large-fruited M.alba selections will survive here or not.

Lucky Pittman
USDA Cold Zone 6
AHS Heat Zone 7
Hopkinsville, KY





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