Several of us attempted to root mulberry cuttings this winter and spring.  To my knowledge...we all failed. I gave up on my last one a couple months ago, having produced, after nearly four months, four tiny leaves, but no roots.

From the posts here...we all seem to have done one thing in common that I think may have led to our failure.   Today while looking at the another forum I came across a post that included the following link from a commercial grower.   They did something none of the rest of us did.

I'd tell you what it is, but then you wouldn't look at the video.  :-)

It's short.  (A little over four minutes).   And the solution seems simple.    Here it is:


Cultivating Mulberry tree

One of my mulberry cuttings actually pulled through once I introduced it to the outdoors.  Hoping it stays strong.

Firs of all, the gentlemen in the video is rooting a cutting from an actively growing tree, with leaves. Whatever detail you want people to pay attention to - like having mature wood on the rooted cutting etc., this is not the same situation as rooting dormant cuttings where, as you mentioned, most people had failed. People try to root dormant cuttings in the spring because they are easier to get. If they would have a tree in their yard like this guy, they might do an air layer and not bother with cuttings.
I have rooted Pakistan and Shangry La varieties from Davis repository. Still have two neglected pots with Shangry La from last year, just need to throw them into the fire pile.

ya...the difference was that we all tried with dormant cuttings.   The guy in the video uses green cuttings and retains several leaves near the tip.  And he claims a near 100% sucess rate.

We were all using dormant cuttings, and, again, looking at the posts...we all failed.  Something to consider in the future...using green cuttings instead of dormant ones.

This may be common knowledge to some of you.  And if you can sucessfully root dormant cuttings...Good for you.   But for those of us that failed with our cuttings this spring...and there were a few of us...it's something to consider next time.

I rooted dormant cuttings this year. Almost all of them made it. I did the baggie method with moist sphagnum. The big difference was I kept it extremely moist, almost to the point that it looked like it would rain in the bag. This made the cuttings develop huge calluses and sprout some immature berries. I clipped those pseudo-fruits off and picked any white mold out of the bag when I saw it. Once the calluses were big enough, I potted up and placed in the shade. No other hassles. Just stuck them in dirt and let them do their thing. Same method works great for pomegranates. Apparently, these trees need to be wet, while olives and figs need it to be drier. Hope this helps.

The weeping mulberry that I tried to root for you centurion has failed numerous times, but I never give up. I started some from green actively growing cuttings about a month ago. I'll see if they took this time in a couple weeks. I put Clonex on them to help it. I also was successful in rooting Shangri la and Pakistan from dormant cuttings. What did I do? Pure neglect. Someone was supposed to mist them for me while I was OOT and didn't for about a month so of course they were covered with roots in a very hot rooting tray.

I have one Kokuso No. 20 barley hanging on.  I had a lot develop roots in the Sphagnum Moss and all except a couple cultivars of the 6 or so I was trying callused up well. Maybe I was not that attentive with moving homes and my spring figs cuttings suffered as result as well. I did graft a couple on to wild tree that I found on the new place and most of them took and I will try air layering them. The mother tree fostering them turned in a pleasant surprise with nice sized tasty fruit. Maybe next year I will bump up the moisture, or maybe back last year of scoring and hormone and straight to a shaded pot. 2 cultivars Shangra-la and Middleton I was successful with but not others last year. I have tried more Illinois Everbearing than I can remember both green and dormant, with zero success. I did have several develop roots in the moss but declined when potted up. For those of you short on space the Geraldi Dwarf I purchased last fall as really produced as a natural dwarf the nodes are very close and thus a lot of fruit on a compact tree. I really liked the fruit, probably not in league of with a Morus Nigra, but at least I will not have to butcher like my 2 Illinois Everbearing which at my other location took advantage of my busy neglect this year to reach for the stars. I was at their location for the 1^st time in over a month today, and I was shaking the tree as most was out of reach.  I need to try work them back down without to much butchering.

This year is my first try at mulberries from cuttings.  Mine arrived  from UCR about June 22, green with leaves with what appears as more aged wood and the lower end.  I got 6 varieties with 5 cuttings each.  I put 5 of each variety equally spaced in a 1 gallon pot of promix BX with a mix of pine bark chips.  I stripped about half of the leaves off.  I keep them in a 16" tall sterlite container with the lid closed and several holes drilled in the lid for some air exchange.  Each day I remove each pot and spray them with a very fine mist pressurized well water for about 30 seconds being careful to not over saturate the soil.  So far, so good.  I saw the video of the Florida grower and am tempted to plant a few in ground and use the sprinklers.  I plan on planting mine away from the house.  The birds love mulberries and load up on them and look for clothes lines loaded, new cars and any large moving object to bomb.  My cuttings arrived in super shape, so any failure on my part, I claim.

Well i cheated and bought very small dormant plant , picture shown when it awakened then today with some fruit that will turn very dark of course. Now have about 5 mulberries on plant.
Noir of Spain will have to grow in container in my climate which is what i planned .

John,

Was UCD your source for cuttings?

I had minimal luck this year, none last year.  One thing I noticed both years is the cuttings tried to produce fruit before roots or leaves.  I think one of the keys to success is to give it enough time to root before it tries to produce fruit. Perhaps summer cuttings are better for this reason. 

James, some were dormant UCD, some were green and dormant from friends, and some were green taken by me locally. They all behaved the same. You are correct in that they all pushed berries before roots. I just cut those off as they developed. Very few cuttings had roots when I potted. They all had bulbous, gnarly calluses though.

mine all failed. even the one that put out some roots. not sure why it failed. might be too much top before roots could support them. maybe be not fast enough root formation. i did have good callus on all the cuttings. they were callused enough they looked like a fist. maybe bottom heat is needed. green cuttings maybe, but i never had any luck what so ever with green cutting for figs, not sure if that will change with mulberry.

I had pretty good luck with my mulberry.  I mailed out quite a few cuttings to folks here and the rest I placed t in moss the same as the figs and when roots formed potted them up.   4 of 6 made it and are now in gallon pots.....I still have those 4 1 gallon pots available if anyone wants to trade.  The tree has leaves about the size of dinner plates and the fruit is AWESOME.

i ordered bunch of cuttings from USDA/UCD. i have few things in mind. i'm sure it's less of a headache to just got a tree... but the fact i can't root this is really getting to me. so far from what i have read, more callus.. lot of moisture.. and bottom heat. i'll score the cuttings to increaase the area of callus. i'll put them on top of the heating vent for bottom heat, and i'll mist them daily. if it fails this yr, i'm going to just go buy a tree or two and see if i can play with it more.