What bush/ what berry

This is growing in Minnesota in the cities

I'd like to find some for my farm.

It's a mulberry tree. I literally have hundreds of them on my farm. I like the berries and mulberry wood is by far my favorite for grilling.

Keith

They stink you dont want them......jk

A more insipid berry I've never known. Birds like 'em though.

How About Turkeys?

So they lack flavor?

The flavor is great on some trees in some years and generally good on all the trees. Some people don't like mulberry trees because the trees are considered messy, because they drop huge amounts of staining fruit on the ground and because birds drop purple poop all over after eating the mulberries.

Almost all animals eat mulberries including all the mammals I can think of in Ohio, except some insectivorous bats. Catfish and carp eat mulberries and can be caught with mulberries. Most birds in Ohio eat mulberries, even birds that eat mostly seeds. Deer and rabbits have a strong preference for thin mulberry growth.

Mulberry trees are great for pollarding.

I highly recommend mulberry wood for grilling on. Most completion grillers, including my friend Thad, who has been frequently winning the World Barbecue Championship, use mulberry in their blends. I cook on mulberry a few times a week.

I've eaten many times more mulberries in my life than any other berry.

Keith

my mom makes awesome mullberry wine!

They taste great imo and I have not found them to be a problem as far as being invasive. I suppose they have the potential to become dominate in some places but they are outcompeted by most species here. When I find them in the "wild" they are usually on the edge of the woods where it meets a road or field

A few people around here like to put tarps under them , up off the ground and funnel the berries in a five gallon bucket. I don’t care for them. They are messy around the house if you have a tree close.

I like the wine and the woman of the house likes the jam. Blue birds and robins tear em up quick, before they're even ripe

Do they attract Turkeys?

Turkeys will gorge on mulberries and keep the ground under the trees scratched up while the berries are dropping. Turkeys have huge purple poops while the mulberries are ripe.

Keith

You absolutely want mulberries! But as said they readily sprout from seed and birds love them some mulberries. They also can stain so don't put them over a sidewalk or vehicle. Some are rather flavorless, the invasive non native white and paper mulberries. You want the native red mulberry or the non native black or persian mulberry. The native red also makes one of the better rot resistant woods for fence posts if you can found one that is straight enough.

On the staining issue, I well remember one Sunday morning and two little girls in their Sunday go to meeting dresses and white shoes finding ripe mulberries before church, lol. Mama wasn't pleased.

Groundhogs will climb mulberry trees for the fruit.

X2

Awesome, Thanks!!!

The Mennonite communities around here make some amazing pies and jams from them. Between Mulberry and Elderberry, I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite jelly/jam/syrup.

IMO, mulberry is not nearly the problem when it comes to secondary staining as the common poke berry. Mulberry has a very short season compared to poke and there is a lot more poke than mulberry. Mulberry does not provide anywhere near the volume of food for birds especially as poke does. Poke not only provides a food source during the growing season but also for months after the frost kills the plant. Find a patch of poke in December or January and you will find dove there feeding regularly.

We had Mennonite around us in Wisconsin...but not around here in Minn.
Some Amish though

Mulberrys make great wine and if you get a Wah tub of them put some sheets over it and let it ferment then put it out by your garden and watch the deer get dead drunk. It does not seem to affect Turkeys but I saw squirrels falling out of trees.

They make very good jelly. Does seem to vary some from year to year on quality of flavor-even from the same tree.

I've only gotten 2 pigs drunk and that with 6 jumbo cans of Schlitz beer I found in my rental house.^^^

We have a back yard neighbor with mulberry tree. Pretty sure you can grow them where you are 330. Back in Nebraska they were considered by some to be invasive as prolific as they are.

Awesome...the one in the picture above is growing in a apt. Blding lot , Richfield, Minn.

Grey fox love them. My neighbor knows when they are ripe,2 greys climb the tree and eat the berries.

I mix mulberries 50-50 with blueberries and make the best blueberry/mulberry crisp ever. You need the blueberries for the tartness, and the mulberries for their sweetness.
If I am gorging on them off of the trees, I prefer the ones with white berries or the ones with pink berries, Those two always seem to be sweet. The black ones can very on their sweetness. We have so many of them around here that we can sample some off a tree and move on to the next one if need be.

I don’t think ours are even thinking about making fruit, unless I’m thinking of a different tree. I know I’ve caught a pile of coon under ours.

They are fairly invasive especially in more open fields. I like the berries myself, and the birds love them.
They are on the must go list when found growing out in the wild.

They aren't very consistent on flavor. 2 berries growing right next to each other can have a vast flavor difference. I eat them one at a time. The best ones are slightly unripe.

There are male and female trees so make sure to plant plently of them if you want fruit.

I’ve heard the sweetness or lack of taste depends on how much rain they’ve received. Too much and the berries are not sweet at all, less rain equals better taste to me.

Very interesting information ^^^

All wildlife love them, myself included! No better place to be for early squirrels on opening day.

Around here it's the white and paper mulberries that are weeds. I can show you entire fields covered in them.

The native reds are few and far between and not at all aggressive in reseeding.

The white and paper ones were brought in during colonial times to try to start a silk worm industry. They have rough hairy leaves while reds are smooth.

Mulberry trees can be male, female, bisexual and can even change sexes, like a Biden staff member. Trees in optimum spots tend to be bisexuals or females and trees in poor spots tend to be males.

Keith

Snapping turtles and fish, especially carp love mulberrys. There is a mulberry tree that overhangs the Musconetcong River not far from me and when the berries are falling you can fill a turtle trap under it. Berry on a hook nails carp for turtle bait. BTW choke cherry trees are also great for snappers and carp.

Did not know that but it makes sense. They are first cousins to figs and the common fig produces parthenogenic fruit, fruit without pollination.

And there are smyrna figs and capri figs, female and male respectively. Those require wasps for pollination.

You only need to plant 2, the birds will plant the rest. They eat the berries, sit on a fence, crap out the seeds, and new trees will grow. Then every few years you can cut them out of the pasture fences. That's how it is around here. Birds do love them but I don't.

do squirrels eat them ?how for north will they grow

We got them, both native and white, birds spread them everywhere, usually where you don't want them. They can get quite large and they make a good smoking wood.

Never was too fond of the flavor, or lack thereof, but some are better than others. There's no pectin in them so won't jell on their own ,but makes a decent syrup.

Not sure how much cold they can take, we're in zone 7.

The one I asked about is in zone 4

The best place to kill a mess of breakfast squirrels.

Or turn out some coonhound pups.

They ripen about the same time the kitten coons come out here.

The only good I could see with our farm's mulberry tree is they draw off some of the starling depredation of berries that actually do have flavor. Lord only knows why.

Carl, have you tried mulberries from other mulberry trees? They are highly variable in sugar content from tree to tree and even the same tree, depending on berry load, rainfall and the intensity of the sun, as the berries ripen.

Some mulberries are very good flavored.

There's some mulberries in my area that are as long as 5 or 6 normal mulberries and there's one tree on a friend's farm that has mulberries into October.

I have several hundred mulberry trees on my farm and only harvest mulberries from a few of the trees that consistently have the best flavored berries. By grafting you should be able to make consistently better flavored mulberries, just like we do with other fruit trees.

Keith

I have heard that Spanish mulberries have more flavor. The mulberries on our tree are very juicy and sweet...but lack an acid balance. I believe that is typical for the American mulberries.

That is true, no real acid bite to them like a blackberry or muscadine. Mostly sweet which may explain why some don't care for them.

There's a few mulberry trees on my farm that have a richer flavor, with some tartness.

I think mulberry trees are like apple trees in that most of the fruit, from the majority of trees, tastes pretty good, a small amount tastes bad and a small amount tastes excellent. If we grafted scions from excellent varieties on the others, we would have overall better fruit quality.

Keith

Deer will clean up the fallen leaves in my area.

Wow

Mulberry trees are not that great, Scott. Yes, we have some on the home place.

Trying to keep Turkeys and deer coming through my land.

Hot burning wood, pretty yellow color, pain to split with maul LOL

Once in a while I will look out and see a Monkey chasing a Weasel all around my Mulberry bush.

LOL.