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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Illinois Everbearing Mulberry

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  • From: Jason Holmes <jholmes@psu.edu>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Illinois Everbearing Mulberry
  • Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:27:29 -0400

William C. Garthright wrote:
I was interested to hear about other people's experience with this mulberry.
I had just recently bought mine from Burnt Ridge and set it in ground
bareroot in April. We had cold weather, although nothing as extreme in scope
as some of you have described. However, my mulberry never broke dormancy
either in zone 6, PA which was most disappointing.


I bought my first Illinois Everbearing mulberry from Forestfarm a little over a year ago, and it never broke dormancy, either. They sent me a replacement that I planted June 7, 2006, and it grew very well - very fast - and looked great. But it didn't break dormancy this year. Of course, we had that April cold snap this year. But I'm wondering about the pattern with this tree.

Well, I bought another one this spring, so we'll see how that goes.

I also purchased my first Illinois Everbearing mulberry (actually, my first mulberry ever) from Forestfarm last year. I had it in the ground late March / early April and it didn't do anything for most of April. It then got zapped by a light, unexpected frost and most of the buds turned dark. By mid-May, I was ready to give up on it, but decided to leave it go for a while longer. In early June, it started growing and by August, it had went from a spindly 1 foot tree to a 8 foot monster (no fertilizer beyond a handful of 9-month Osmocote that I had mixed into the 3-foot hole I had dug for it). A forestry friend of mine thought that that amount of growth would lead to a weak tree and so I cut it back to about 4 feet for this year. I protected it well for a potential late frost here this year and it woke up mid May, which is very late compared to most everything else here (Zone 5b/6, PA). It has about 50 berries on it now with the most developed one just starting to get some color on it and has put on about 18 inches of growth both vertically and all around (it looks more like a bush than a tree now, but I'll take care of that this winter). I've never tasted a mulberry before and am very excited about doing so given the comments here regarding how good the Illinois Everbearing berries taste. This thread reminds me I should protect some of the better looking berries lest the birds make me wait until next year for the initial tasting.

Thanks,

--
Jason Holmes




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