Thank you Winn, that is informative. 22 ploidy? That's hard to imagine!
So, my 5 year old tree that was started from a seed from a common black mulberry fruit (probably M. alba I guess) has been very healthy and is taller than me and wider than it is tall, but still hasn't produced fruit, or even anything that looked like it might be flowers.
Last Feb I got cuttings from somebody in my region, from
trees that I was told one has white fruit and one has very long black fruit. I kept the cuttings in a
bucket of
water in the
greenhouse until warm
enough, and then planted out into a
garden bed. Some of both types did leaf out, not hugely vigorously but did seem alive all the way until first frost in October, so I hope they are. I had thought maybe my original oldest tree is male (even though I don't see anything like flowers) so maybe having trees from cuttings from two fruiting trees would be a good match. But now I learn maybe the long black ones are totally different species? Whoah!
This November I had some grapes that were a bit too sour and intense so I wanted to make jam, and instead of adding sugar I decided to simple mix in dried black mulberries (black colored fruit, maybe M. alba I guess). It came out awesome! Highly recommend, wow! I'm going to do it again next year when my black currants produce for the first time.
I ran the seedy black grapes through a hand-cranked food mill after cooking them in their own juices long enough to go soft. Then I simmered the dried mulberries in the grape juice until fully hydrated, and canned it.
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