North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 10:15 AM 8/4/2005, you wrote:
> I'd love a stick of the Ky native.
Can do.  The "Lawson Dawson" M.rubra was brought to my attention by a 
co-worker here at the lab.  He's been cutting hay on this older fellow's 
farm for years, and was impressed by the high fruit quality and heavy 
production.  A few years back, I visited the tree when it was fruiting, and 
the fruits are very tasty, and of good size - as large or larger than any 
other M.rubra I've sampled yet.   It's growing in the corner of the 
barnlot, maybe 30 ft  from a small stock pond, so it probably has the 
benefit of plenty of water and good soil fertility from the cows camping 
out beneath it.
I've got a couple of grafts of it growing at the house, and have access and 
permission from the owner(Mr. Dawson) to collect scionwood whenever I want to.
So...don't forget to remind me to collect some for you, along about 1 
March, next year.

> Any hints on successful grafting of mulberry?
I've had good sucess with cleft grafts, did a few as whip & tongue grafts a 
couple of years ago - good success, but really ugly graft unions - but 
nowadays, I do bark veneer grafts on just about everything, with reasonable 
success on most stuff - though my pecan/hickory and walnut grafts still 
aren't coming out with the success ratios I'd like.
I have T-budded mulberry on a couple of occasions, with good success, but I 
checked some of the M.rubra T-buds I did a month ago, with scions I brought 
back from some of the trees on the farm back home in AL(it recently sold, 
so I may not have access to them any longer), and it looks as if all failed.
An inverted T-bud placement *may* meet with better success, I just don't know.

Getting mighty dry down here.  It's been so hot the last two weeks, that 
any moisture left from the rains we got out of the remnants of Hurricane 
Dennis are pretty well depleted.  Johnson grass & crabgrass still growing 
well, but fescue, orchardgrass & clovers are getting crispy.

Lucky