Mulberry Fruit Comparison

[sc4001992]

Some of my mulberry fruits are starting to ripen so I wanted to share some photos of the ripe fruits I picked. I will put up the photos soon today.

The following mulberries are ripe here in SoCal:
1. Thai Dwarf/World's Best
2. White Pakistan
3. Australian Green
4. Saharanpur Local
5. Shahtoot/King White
6. Red Himalayan

As far as I can tell, the four white long fruited mulberries above are the same variety. The fruits are the same size, taste, and color. But I do notice there are differences in growth of the branches/leaves.

I only have the Red Himalayan fruits ripening and do not any of the other red long fruiting mulberry (i.e. Skinner, Taiwan Long).

If anyone has ripe mulberries, please share your photos and describe how you like the taste/flavor.

Once my mulberry trees are done with the fruits, I plan to cut them all back a lot so if there is interest, I will generate an Advance purchase list for the mulberry cuttings so it will make it easier for me to just contact you when I cut the branches and then you can pay and I will ship. There are some rare/scarce varieties that I will not be taking cuttings yet since my grafts are too small.

Here's my list of mulberries grafted on my trees. But only the ones with X will be large enough to take cuttings and share.



Since my Thai Dwarf/World's Best and Red Himalayan, White Pakistan, Australian Green, Saharanpur Local have all fruited and most are half way done ripening I will start the advance order list for cuttings:

1. To be on this Advance Order -Waiting List, here's what you must meet.
2. TFF forum member for 1 year minimun (no exception)
3. Limit of 3 cuttings max of any variety I mention. No minimum
4. Shipping cost of $10.20 (USPS small flat rate), no pickup.
5. I am limiting the number of members on the list to 10 max. You can be on more than one variety list.
6. I will check your registration date to determine yrs of membership.
7. Any member with 10yrs or more gets the cuttings for free, but pays shipping cost of $10.20

I will not be reading this post here for request to be on this list, you must send me a message and when I acknowledge you are on it, then you are good to go. When the fruits are done, I will start going in priority order of this list.

[spaugh]

The thai dwarf is ripening here.  My chickens eat them all though which is fine.  I got the other red himalayan setting fruit this year so I can compare the 2 himalayans.  Should be pretty soon. 

[sc4001992]

Brad, this is the year for your Red Himalayan cuttings on my trees. They are all holding lots of fruits now. Some are already ripening so I took some photos the other day, will post later tonight.

What is the other Himalayan variety you have? Do you know who the source is (nursery)?

[Fygee]

WBM is fruiting like it's going out of style. The berries are about half ripe, so they'll need another couple of weeks before they're ready to go.

Last year it fruited just as much to the point that the tree was leaning, but true to what's known about WBM, the taste was pretty meh. Kinda bland if fully ripe, and mostly just tart if a little underripe.

I tried grafting some other varieties, but none of them took. Going to try again this year using chipbud and T grafting instead.

[sc4001992]

World's Best/Thai Dwarf is the same variety as far as I'm concerned since I grafted both on the same tree and everything looks identical, same fruit, same leaf shape, same ripening time.

You can graft any other mulberry variety on World's Best tree you have with no problem, don't waste your time bud grafting. Just use cleft graft which is easy on mulberry, remember to cut  scionwood surface perfectly flat. Most people have failed grafts because they don't do this. Also when you graft mulberry, since they are hard wood, you need to have the perfectly flat matching cambium surface and pressure on the graft union. I use the green grafting tape that streches (1/2" wide from Home Depot) and leave it on for at least 6 months so the graft union heals, then remove the green tape.

I had to cut back my Thai Dwarf last year since it just has too many fruits as you mention. I had to pick 2 lbs of fruit everyday to keep it from dropping all over my yard. Now I only need to pick 1 lb of fruits each day for the next 4 wks on this tree.

Here's a few photos of the World's Best/Thai Dwarf tree now.

[K-Rimes]

My mulberries are something else this year. Himalayan looks really good too, got those from Brad a few years back. The white mulberry is mind blowing with how much fruit is in it.

Does anyone net their whole tree? I am tempted for the Pakistani / Himalayan rather than bagging

[Jaboticaba45]

My australian green from Kaz is doing great and fruited for the first time here. Got distinct melon flavor from it.

[achetadomestica]

The birds ate 99%  of my mulberries this year. Wood Peckers, Cardinals,
Blue Jays, Mocking birds you name it. Every time I walked out of my house
big swarms of birds would fly off.
They also were eating my jaboticabas and even my hot peppers.
It's so weird last year the birds didn't eat any.
I do have some white shatoot about to ripen that they don't see.
I am curious Kaz Do you have the new Siam Jumbo?
It's also being called a different name. I have a young tree and the
mulberries are very interesting. I had to eat them early to beat the birds
but I may need to plant a few more.

[sc4001992]

I don't net my trees now either, but I noticed since all of my mulberry varieties have fruits now, the baby hummingbird birds that I help from the rain (in loquat tree) is eating my fruits and also picking at all the ripe loquat fruits. I just bagged all my representative loquat varieties so I can let them ripen to do the brix reading and taste comparison next month.

Mike, yes I saw those photos of the fruits, they look very fat and juicy. So, I picked up a couple of small trees and scionwood is grafted on my trees. I think one of the small trees I purchase of the Aussie Mulberry / Siam Jumbo has a lot of fruits but they don't look as large as the photos in the sales adds. I'll try to take some photos of the small tree with fruits.

[spaugh]

Kaz the other himalayan is called dmor something like that, it comes from Marta.  Its got different leaf shape.  Janet gave me a tree a year or so ago and it blew up super fast.  Super vigorous tree. 

[sc4001992]

Brad, ok, I know that one. I paid $150 for a small 1 gallon plant with a small scionwood of the DMOR9 grafted. I now have it grafted on my larger tree so next year I should get some fruits. There is one more of the long red fruiting mulberry called Himalayan Red (not Taiwan Long) which is from a local person in SoCal that I have grafted also. It is different from your Red Himalayan.

[ScottR]

here you go; https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/ImgDisplay?id=1564196

[sc4001992]

Thanks Robert, did not see that info, very nice photos of the fruit and leaves.

[Oolie]

I'm very curious which if any of the green/white/local varieties can hang until yellow. Frank Habetler who recently passed on shared some scions of a tree he had which was likely one of these. What made it interesting is that the fruit hang until yellow, at which point they take on a pina colada flavor.

Very interested to ID this one, as Frank said it was a common variety, but lost the tag for it.

[sc4001992]

I now have all the long white fruiting mulberry varieties grafted on my trees (White Pakistan, Australian Green, Saharanpur local) and these fruits tastes, size, and color looks very similar. The only reason I see that sometimes the ripe fruit will be white when ripe is due to tree age. The fruit get to yellow as the tree gets older. The fruits will be larger and stay on the branches until they turn color from green->white->yellow (fully ripe). Then if you don't pick the fruits when it turns yellow, any branch movement will drop the fruit. So, if you just touch the yellow fruits, they will fall off the branch.

When my grafted trees were 2-5 yrs old, many of the white Pakistan/Australian Green fruits would start dropping when the color went from green to white/yellow. Now that my two trees are 5-8 yrs old, most of the fruits will hang on the tree and get to full size fruits and have yellow color before it fall off. I took pictures this time last week of my fruits on the trees so when I have time, I will post the photos and identify which trees they are. Also, this is the fruit year my Red Himalayan from Exotica (Brad's scionwood) is holding many fruits on all my trees and staying on until fruit color is red. I took brix readings of both the white Pakistan and Red Himalayan so you will see why people say the white Pakistan is the sweetest.

[mangoba]

Brad, is your non DMOR9 Himalayan a Skinner?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVLL18msS44

[Oolie]

Thanks for the confirmation. I suspected they may all be the same.

My tree is only 4-5 years, but is bearing well, but as soon as the rats and squirrels figured out they can be eaten at any stage other than green, I haven't tasted a single one.

[JCorte]

I'm very curious which if any of the green/white/local varieties can hang until yellow. Frank Habetler who recently passed on shared some scions of a tree he had which was likely one of these. What made it interesting is that the fruit hang until yellow, at which point they take on a pina colada flavor.

Very interested to ID this one, as Frank said it was a common variety, but lost the tag for it.

I got scion of a white mulberry cultivar from Marta named Frank, not sure if this is the same one you are referring to.  Unlike Saharanpur and the other White Pakistan, Frank easily rooted from a cutting.  I am growing several other white varieties besides the three previously mentioned, but won't be able to do a good comparison of the fruits for a couple more years.  Look forward to tasting a white mulberry with pina colada flavor.

Janet

[sc4001992]

Janet, I didn't see the Frank mulberry on sale from ReallyGoodPlants (Marta), must have missed it.
Will good to see how the leaves and fruits of that variety looks. I may need to ask her for a small cutting.

[sc4001992]

Oole, Janet, I couldn't tell you if my long white fruiting mulberries tastes like "pina colada flavor". I'm a beer drinker only.

[JCorte]

Hi Kaz,

I sourced a lot of different varieties, if any turn out to be especially good, I can share scion with you when the plants are big enough. 

I have a lot going on right now, but will try to take pics of some of the fruits if I have time.

We appreciate beer drinkers, we're in the craft brewing business and are opening a couple more locations this year.  One day we'll have fruit tastings at our orchard, for now we have beer tastings.

Janet

[sc4001992]

Janet, sounds good, thank you. I'll be interested in coming to taste the fruits and beer, no longer needing my crutch to walk around. Successful knee replacement surgery, yippee!

[sc4001992]

Once I get around to it, when I post my ripe mulberry photos, I will make one last advance cuttings list for the ones I post here. It will be much easier for me to know how many people want to buy the limited cuttings I will offer to those on my advance list after the fruits are done. This way, I only need to notify those on the list and ship out when i have time to cut/ship.

Last time selling any cuttings. After this summer, I'm cutting down most of my trees way back and reducing all varieties to only the ones I like to eat fruits from.

Here's some photos of my mulberry fruits this year. First time I had so many Red Himalayan fruits from my tree. Both the Australian Green/White Pakistan, and Red Himalayan trees held the fruits ripe much longer than last year so there were lots of fruits to eat.

========================================================
Red Himalayan,  Australian Green,  White Pakistan  (picked 5-16-23)
========================================================






















Here's some old photos from 2022:



Here's the leaves when the fruits are done, then the leaves starts to get big and biger.

[Lovetoplant]

The thai dwarf is ripening here.  My chickens eat them all though which is fine.  I got the other red himalayan setting fruit this year so I can compare the 2 himalayans.  Should be pretty soon.

I bet the eggs your chickens produced are extremely delicious.  Are they free range?

[Oolie]

I'm very curious which if any of the green/white/local varieties can hang until yellow. Frank Habetler who recently passed on shared some scions of a tree he had which was likely one of these. What made it interesting is that the fruit hang until yellow, at which point they take on a pina colada flavor.

Very interested to ID this one, as Frank said it was a common variety, but lost the tag for it.

I got scion of a white mulberry cultivar from Marta named Frank, not sure if this is the same one you are referring to.  Unlike Saharanpur and the other White Pakistan, Frank easily rooted from a cutting.  I am growing several other white varieties besides the three previously mentioned, but won't be able to do a good comparison of the fruits for a couple more years.  Look forward to tasting a white mulberry with pina colada flavor.

Janet

I saw birds today raiding the crop. Looks like bagging will be necessary.

The variety is with all likelihood a different cultivar. The Frank's Yellow doesn't root in any of my attempts. It's even a challenge for getting grafts to take.