Mulberry - Leafing out

[yoderjac]

I decided to add a couple mulberry to my plan this year, mostly for turkey. I bought 4 bare root trees to get me started this winter. I potted them up in 3 gal RB2s and put them in my cold room with pawpaw, Seguins, and Jujube. I've been slowly planting the pawpaw this spring. In fact I just planted 6 more today. As I was loading those pawpaw the other day, I noticed that the mulberry were beginning to leaf out, so I took them out of the cold room and put them under lights. This was not my plan, but I figure if they are going to leaf out, I might as well. Here is a pic:

Thanks,

Jack

 

[John-W-WI]

You must have a large area to grow stuff in. It will be interesting to see how they do?

 

[yoderjac]

You must have a large area to grow stuff in. It will be interesting to see how they do?

I have a finished basement that I've converted into a grow area for indoors. At the farm, I'm trying to move away from high input food plots to more of a permaculture approach. So, many of my fields will be slowly converted to "wildlife openings". They will basically have a clover base with low maintenance fruit and nut trees.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Corbin.clay]

I have a finished basement that I've converted into a grow area for indoors. At the farm, I'm trying to move away from high input food plots to more of a permaculture approach. So, many of my fields will be slowly converted to "wildlife openings". They will basically have a clover base with low maintenance fruit and nut trees.

Thanks,

Jack

Im glad you used that word permaculture. I was talking with my old man about long term goals and how I want shrubs, trees, and a few perennial plots to be our long term goals. I couldnt think of the term. He is 62 but has a grandson (my nephew) and 3 granddaughters (my kids) to share it with. May be setting the bar high, but I hope to have as much browse/cover as the brushpile! I planted my 9 bareroot mulberries into the ground at my farm and 1 in the backyard. Wish I would have babied one in a pot at the house.

 

[yoderjac]

Im glad you used that word permaculture. I was talking with my old man about long term goals and how I want shrubs, trees, and a few perennial plots to be our long term goals. I couldnt think of the term. He is 62 but has a grandson (my nephew) and 3 granddaughters (my kids) to share it with. May be setting the bar high, but I hope to have as much browse/cover as the brushpile! I planted my 9 bareroot mulberries into the ground at my farm and 1 in the backyard. Wish I would have babied one in a pot at the house.

I'm closer to your father's age and I don't have kids of my own, but I'm still thinking in terms of permaculture. Most folks use trees for attraction or browse, but I'm looking at them from a feeding standpoint. I'm just north of you on VA so summer is our major stress period like yours. I have not found a suitable replacement for planting summer annuals like soybeans yet to cover that period. My goal is to develop hard and soft mast trees that require essentially zero maintenance to produce and that drop across as much of the year as possible. The older I get, the less I will be able to maintain. We went heavy on food plots when we bought the place as food was our limiting factor. Through timber management and controlled burns, we have set the stage for a significant increase in native foods. This is a huge bang for the buck as the timber sales more than pay for these improvements and all of the physical work can be done under contract where my age and physical limitations are not a factor. The next best bang for the buck is grafting my native persimmons. I can convert male trees to fruit producing female trees and by trading scions with others and buying a few commercial varieties for earlier drop times, I'm hoping to have persimmons dropping from mid-August through February. Next is longer term in nature, but I'm planting high quantities of trees, chestnut, Allegheny chinquapin, DCO, filberts, seguins, jujube, pear, and pawpaw so far. I couldn't afford to buy the volume of trees I need for feeding, so I looked into growing my own from nuts and seeds. That has worked out well. It has given me a great cabin fever project and after amortizing my setup costs over the years I've been growing trees, I'm producing better quality seedlings for pennies on the dollar. I have recently started with crabapples and apples. These were the last on my list because of the potential maintenance required for good production. I'm trying to work mostly with crabs and growing my own root stock from seed so I get long-lived full sized trees and I'm working with the most disease resistant varieties I can find. Time will tell with these. While deer and turkey are the primary species we

My partners do have kids, grandkids, and great grand kids making this permaculture thing a much easier sell with them.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Corbin.clay]

We our on that same path. However we were clearcut 4 years before we bought (13 heirs to the land wanted money fast), so we have very little in timber, but lots of cover. Organic matter is great, but pH is low on much of the farm due to 50 years of pines. Much of the shrubs and groundcover growing now are very low preference on browse. Food is our low hole in the bucket as well. I enjoy plotting but in terms of mass of food produced per time of effort, shrubs and trees are the way to go. I dont have any native persimmons, but will be ordered them in bulk next year from NC forest service with hopes of grafting similar to you. I planted chestnuts, chinkapins, hazelnuts, pear, elderberry and others summer berries for the same reason as you. I hope the turkeys enjoy the mulberries as I probably manage as much for them as i do deer.

 

[yoderjac]

I move the Mulberry trees outside today to begin the process of acclimation:

The 4 in the 3 gals closest to the camera are the Mulberries. The rest behind are the apple seedlings.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Updated Picture Links

 

[yoderjac]

These mulberries have grown very well in the 3 gal RB2s on my deck this summer. It is now early September and there is not too much growing season left here. Everything is still green but it won't be for too long. I plan to plan these trees in the field this fall. This is my first try with mulberry. I understand it is a favorite browse, so I presume I'll need some protection. I think I will probably use tubes. These trees put on lots of lateral branches this summer and I'll need to remove that if I use tubes. I decided to try an experiment.

Rather than waiting for the trees to go dormant to prune the lateral branches, I decided to prune them today. I then took the cuttings and trimmed them into sections with 4 buds per section. I applied rooting hormone #3 and planted them in a long deep pot. I used a mix of sand and potting mix. I then put supports in all 4 corners of the pot and covered it with a white kitchen garbage bag. I brought it in doors and stuck it in the basement. I just let it sit for a few weeks hoping some of them root.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Brush farmer]

Yoderjac, I've got about a dozen mulberries in my mixture also. They are there for the same reasons you gave. The timing of the berry drop is perfect for feeding turkey polts. Mine are planted around a section that multiple hens nest in annually.
I have some small clover plots and several fruit trees, but trees like mulberry, pawpaw, persimmon, and nut trees can't be beat for a long term foods supply with little or no fertilizer, lime, spraying, pruning, etc.
These trees will take a bit longer than traditional plots or food trees to make food for wildlife, but they'll be making food for generations. Another benefit is that a small colony of trees could even have some natural reproduction.

 

[yoderjac]

Yoderjac, I've got about a dozen mulberries in my mixture also. They are there for the same reasons you gave. The timing of the berry drop is perfect for feeding turkey polts. Mine are planted around a section that multiple hens nest in annually.
I have some small clover plots and several fruit trees, but trees like mulberry, pawpaw, persimmon, and nut trees can't be beat for a long term foods supply with little or no fertilizer, lime, spraying, pruning, etc.
These trees will take a bit longer than traditional plots or food trees to make food for wildlife, but they'll be making food for generations. Another benefit is that a small colony of trees could even have some natural reproduction.

You are spot on. When I first started with our place, everything with antlers was shot and does were passed. It was an emergency room situation. Food plots were the best short-term answer. We started a high intensity food plot program and it was a success. That high cost, high input, approach is not sustainable in the long term for us. We are moving toward a long-term much more sustainable approach that includes permaculture. Timber management along with controlled burns have been our largest scale habitat manipulation. We may always need some summer food plots to cover that stress period in our area, but I'm in the process of converting many to what I call "wildlife openings" . I start with a nice Durana clover base and plant mast producing trees. From that point on, the field pretty much gets only mowing on occasion to keep woody plants from establishing. They will end up being a mix of native herbaceous weeds and clover with the trees.

Even with our remaining food plots, we are moving toward more sustainable, lower input cost, approaches. Things like no-till or min-till retain moisture, help build OM without disturbing the soil tilth. This, along with the selection of complementary plants, improves nutrient cycling and reduces fertilizer requirements.

While I'm young(er) and healthy, I can sustain the workload of food plots, but that won't last forever. Moving my focus to permaculture should allow me to reduce my work level as I age while overall food production increases on the property.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Brush farmer]

I started with more typical plots thinking it was easier. Now I'm working areas I can't get a machine with trees that won't require much maintence. At the same time I've been working on getting a better mixture of tree species in the main woods which are 75% maple. I'm taking the opportunity of canopy openings due to a bad windstorm a few years ago and the death of our ash trees (plus some culling). Turns out I was all wrong. The latter work is easier and less time consuming. Its a trade off though. I won't make immediate food to hunt over this fall, but what I do get will make food for years without my input once established.