Black mulberry: description and characteristics

Description

Iran is considered the homeland of black mulberry; shrubs and trees that belong to the Mulberry family are known. The tree in the wild can grow up to 35 m tall, so its growth is usually limited in the garden. It belongs to deciduous crops, that is, every spring young green leaves grow from the buds. By mid-summer, they can be quite large - up to 25 cm long and 15 cm wide, and in the fall, almost all varieties delight with a beautiful change in color, the trees turn yellow and majestically crumble. Trees live for several centuries, specimens are known for 200, 300 years and even more, they begin to bear fruit after reaching 5 - 8 years, some varieties even later, and grafted plants bear fruit already in the third year.

Among mulberries, there are monoecious ones - they have male and female flowers next to each other, and dioecious ones - with flowers of only one sex. The flowers are pollinated by the wind, one monoecious tree is enough to provide seven tasty sweet berries, as a 10-year-old tree can produce up to 100 kg of fruit per season.

Their fruit is a drupe, what we incorrectly call a berry is actually tiny drupes sitting tightly on an overgrown stalk. Such a false berry in black mulberries is usually very dark, purple or red to black, but this is not why black mulberries are called, because white mulberries also have fruits not only white, but also black. White and black mulberries differ in the color of the bark - in white it is light, light brown, or yellowish, and in black it is much darker, sometimes with a red tint, the whole is covered with lace of small cracks. And the fruits (the so-called berries) are small about 1 cm long, but cultivated varieties are usually 2.5 to 5.5 cm long.

The fruits are not only tasty, sweet, sometimes sour, juicy, with amazingly persistent ink paint, stains from which are difficult to remove from the fabric. They contain many useful substances - vitamins A, C, B1, B6, K, E, PP, carotene, macro- and microelements, sugars and acids, essential oils. Thanks to such a rich composition, they have a beneficial effect on the human body, help to strengthen immunity, correct impaired metabolism, and restore the work of many internal organs, disturbed by diseases. Traditional medicine has been using all parts of the plant for centuries to improve human health, to alleviate many conditions.Berries are eaten fresh, but they are stored for no more than three days, so many delicious desserts are prepared from them, dried, canned, wine and even vodka made. Fruits ripen unevenly, next to black ripe berries there may be red of different shades (different degrees of ripeness) or even just emerging.Ripening sometimes stretches for 1.5 - 2 months - from the end of June to August. Overripe fruits crumble. They harvest the crop by shaking, spread a film or cloth under the tree, shake the branches, and then pour the crop from the film into a more suitable container.

Video "Features of growing mulberry"

From the presented video you will learn how to grow mulberries.

Reproduction

For reproduction of mulberries, seeds, root shoots, cuttings and layering are used. Seeds germinate well, for this they must undergo stratification, they are sown in the garden before winter, then watered, mulched. When sowing in spring, the seeds are prepared - for two months they are kept in the refrigerator, only once a week they are taken out into a warm room for several hours. They sprout well, then they are looked after as for ordinary seedlings, excellent material for grafting will grow from these sprouts. Unfortunately, the seeds do not guarantee that the plant will retain the characteristics of the mother tree, it is not even possible to know in advance that a monoecious or dioecious plant will turn out, so the desired variety is grafted onto them, and such a plant will grow healthy and begin bearing fruit earlier than that which appeared in another way.

Root shoots appear under almost every tree, such a sprout can simply be separated, trying not to damage the roots, and transplanted to a new place, but such plants also do not retain the features of the mother tree - planting such a seedling on your site is like buying a cat in bag.

For cuttings, young or semi-lignified shoots are taken, but they root very poorly, this can be done, but you will need to install artificial fog - they need so much moisture. Usually summer residents do not do this, it is much easier to graft a branch from a good tree on seedlings obtained from seeds or on a root shoot.

It is easy to obtain cuttings from shrubs, tree branches are far from the ground, it is simply physically impossible to bend them, but seedlings obtained by rooting cuttings most often grow into a strong tree, retaining all the characteristics of the parent plant variety. You can cut off a thick branch in the spring, over the summer, flexible young branches will grow on the hemp, which will easily bend to the ground. In the spring of next year, you need to take a branch, bend it to the ground, in a place that can be buried, remove the bark in a ring around the entire branch for a couple of centimeters, pin it to the ground, bury it, water it, huddle it until the end of the growing season. By autumn, it will take root, can be cut off from the mother tree and planted in a permanent place of growth.

Some gardeners make layers in one season, but for this you have to deliver the earth to the branch, since it can not get to the ground. You need to make a plastic sleeve - a long bag with a cut off the bottom, put it on the selected branch, a few centimeters below the bare place (the bark is previously removed on the branch along the ring), tie it tightly. Then wet loose soil is poured into this resulting bag, the bare place of the branch is fixed in it, tying the bag above this place. It is advisable to cover this branch of the garden so that direct sunlight does not fall on it, and by autumn the branch should take root, then it can be cut off and planted as an independent seedling.

Mulberry is well grafted, therefore, when propagating, it is best to plant the desired variety on a seedling obtained in any way, this will accelerate the onset of fruiting.

Care features

When a new tree is planted in the garden, it is usually watered, fed, protected from pests, the trunk circle is weeded and loosened, and also, it is cut once or twice a year. Mulberry needs the same care, but when planting black mulberry in your garden, you need to know some of the nuances of caring for this particular type of mulberry tree.So, it can be watered and fed only in spring and at the very beginning of summer, in mid-June all these activities are stopped, only in this case the tree will winter well. Watering should be done with restraint, if there is no rain at all, and fertilizing with mineral fertilizers should be done after 4 or 5 years of the tree's life. A mature tree can be watered more (in spring), and fertilizer added if the state of the greenery shows the need for these actions. The fact is that the black variety of mulberry tolerates the cold worst of all, it is used to growing in warm climates with long summers and mild winters, if you give it a lot of water and fertilizer, it will not prepare for wintering, it will try to extend its growing season, which means, that with the arrival of frost it can freeze.

When planting a seedling, the hole needs to be filled only with soil without additional fertilizers. If the soil is completely depleted, you need to prepare it in advance, dig deep an area of ​​1 square meter, add peat if the soil is too heavy or compost (humus) if it is sandy and infertile.

It is better to do this in the fall for spring planting or in the middle of summer for autumn planting. Then you just need to dig a hole of suitable size, drive a strong stake into its bottom, lower the seedling, straighten all the roots, carefully sprinkle them with earth, then fill the hole completely, press down the earth around the trunk, tie the seedling to the stake, pour it with two buckets of water, mulch the near-stem a circle. The roots of the mulberry are very fragile, you need to make sure that they are not damaged during planting, and then dig less around the tree, loosen the ground very carefully. Experts say that having received a lot of fertilizers, the seedling will fatten, which means that it will not have time to prepare for winter.

Young mulberry trees grow quickly, you need to immediately determine the growth to which you will allow it to grow, boldly cut it off, forming a crown, from the very first year. The bushes are planted at a distance of 1.5 - 2 m and rows are made every 3 m. But the tree must be planted 5 m from other large trees, otherwise it will not have enough space. And the mulberry tree loves a lot of sun, it is only desirable to protect it from the north wind.

Formative pruning is done in the spring. Usually they leave a clean trunk up to 1.5 m, removing all lateral shoots below this mark, and then form the skeleton of the crown, most often spherical. You can form a small tree, like a dwarf apple, for this, the central conductor is cut off at the selected height, up to 8-10 skeletal branches are left, adjusting their length. If the tree is allowed to grow up to 2 - 3 meters, then the central conductor is cut off after this mark, and the skeletal branches are cut as necessary to limit the growth of the crown. In weeping varieties, they usually only monitor the length of the shoots and thin out the crown. When pruning in autumn, all branches that are damaged or growing in the middle of the crown are removed, thinning is also done in the spring. It is necessary to ensure that the crown does not become too thickened, the sun must penetrate into the tree, otherwise its lack will affect the ripening of the fruits.

Mulberry is very rarely sick, but it can be affected by bacteriosis, cylindrosporiasis, curly small leaves, powdery mildew, root rot. There are special preparations that will surely save you from each of these misfortunes, but it is better to take preventive measures - not to allow the crown to thicken, excessive moisture, excess nitrogen fertilizers. It is better to remove fallen leaves from under the tree, to avoid overgrowth of weeds.

If beetles and bears have settled on the site, then the roots of the mulberry can suffer from them, but the greens can be damaged by the American white butterfly, spider mite, Comstock worm. Pests settle in cracks in the bark or among leaves, breed offspring there, which feeds on buds, foliage or tree sap.In order to notice their appearance in time and start a fight, you need to carefully examine the tree, you can often collect nests (butterflies), destroy the larvae in time, or use special traps that are arranged on the tree. Black mulberry very rarely suffers from diseases and pests, but you need to be careful to notice troubles early if they do occur. But the birds always try to take a tasty harvest before the owners, often they have to save the berries from them.

Varieties of varieties

Breeding work on mulberry varieties is ongoing, many collectives are trying to make black mulberry more frost-resistant. The variety of the Poltava breeder "Shelley No. 150" is very popular. It is distinguished by large sweet black berries weighing 4 to 6 g each (5.5 cm long). The berries begin to ripen at the end of May; they can be eaten fresh throughout June.

Among the large-fruited varieties, the Black Prince and the Black Pearl are distinguished. In July, quite large (up to 5 cm long) berries of the "Nadezhda" variety also ripen, they have a noticeable sourness in taste. Trees grow up to 10 meters, they are afraid of frost. The varieties "Staromoskovskaya", "Plodovaya - 4", "Korolevskaya" are grown in the Moscow region. They do not have such large fruits, but one adult tree can produce from 60 to 90 kg of sweet, healthy berries.

Video "Subtleties of caring for a mulberry tree"

From the video presented you will learn about all the intricacies of caring for mulberry.