North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> When you summer prune, you are probably pruning off buds in which flowers 
> that will bloom the following year have already been initiated. ... He says 
> it takes 50 days for the mulberry tree to initiate floral primordia.  I do 
> not know, however, whether the tree maintains this ability throughout the 
> growing season.


Thanks for the link, Sam. I see that the pruning there is somewhat like 
what I had in mind, as far as keeping the tree as a bushy stump (a 
higher stump, in my case, since the roots are white mulberry). However, 
the focus of this book is on the production of leaves, not fruit, 
apparently.

I just planted my tree this spring, but I do have some green mulberries 
on it. Not too many, and of course it's very late in the year, but they 
are on this year's growth. That's why I was hoping to be able to prune 
heavily in the spring and still get berries. I wouldn't have to worry 
about summer pruning, if I just cut the whole thing back to a stump 
every spring. However, if the buds are initiated the year before, that 
won't work.

Well, this is one tree with which I feel I can really experiment. I'm 
going to plant a Geraldi Dwarf Mulberry next spring, so if I do 
something really unforgivable with this one (I almost have, already), I 
can just start over. For some reason, I don't feel that way about the 
rest of my fruit trees, despite the fact that I'll be buried in fruit if 
all of them do survive and produce.  :-D

Thanks again,

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. 
The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the 
man from touching the equipment. - Warren G. Bennis