I'm planning to take a chainsaw to several bottom branches of my large mulberry tree so I can mow under it more easily. I usually prune this tree while it is dormant in winter to avoid all that milky, sticky white sap that gets all over everything if a limb is cut in summertime.
However, I don't know if I'm patient enough to wait till winter. We've still got a long summer ahead of us here in Southwest Florida with many more lawn mowings yet to go.
Will it hurt the tree to severely prune it now?
Fisherking73 and I both probably have the regular large averaging about 1.5 inches long black mulberries. These trees grow very fast like he said and can become monsters until wind blows them over if not pruned or protected from wind.
Roblack says he has the everbearing mulberry. I can only say that I had one about 7-11 years ago that was much slower growing and would get lichen on it due to growing so slow.... The berries on the species of everbearing I had was about 1/4 the size of the larger black mulberry trees so I cut it down and mowed over the remainder. Yours Roblack is much bigger than mine and probably a newer type of everbearing as a larger tree size than my former puny tree.
Fiddler, if you have a tree like mine & Fisherking73 cut it anytime you want. If it is a slow growing everbearing as I had many years ago... slight trimming if you want to keep it. As Roblack mentioned, removing a lot of limbs and/or pulling all the leaves off existing limbs will cause a flush of new growth with the setting of new fruit if a lot of water is provided (rain etc.) The everbearing will fruit better but a lot of times the bigger black mulberry trees will also fruit to a lesser extent for a second time if enough rain (or watering).
I prunned limbs after the spring crop ending after april 15th and with the rain the shoots have regrown the 6 foot plus distance almost once again touching some cable & power lines in one location. So over 6 foot in 2 months with a lot of rain.... I just cut them again today on that one tree to keep them away from the lines... This is faster than previous years as more rain... They usually slow in Aug. with less rain and the heat and the leaves start turning yellow and appearing close to being leafless and I am happy for that slow growth and I do not water mine as I hope they almost stop growing till the following Feb. growth spurt again & fruiting. (The small 2nd crop you can get with the summer rains or watering is not as good tasting IMO as the normal spring crop, but it's not bad either).