Growing pakistan mulberry in zone 6b

I'd like to share my experience growing a Pakistan mulberry in zone 6b US.

I bought the plant in June, 2019 from Hirt's garden. The information on their website regarding this tree was confusing: the photo showed Morus alba and hardy only to zone 9, or 7 when mature. Yet the text said it is a morus alba× morus rubra and cold hardy in zone 6-10.

I gave it a try anyway and the tiny 4" starter was the fastest growing tree I have ever seen. It reached 8 foot tall by halloween, before it got hit by early frost. This really amazed me since we had poor hard clay soil.

I didn't provide any protection on the tree in winter, except pilling up some sticks as mulch. The top 1-2 foot of the branches turned brown but the lower parts didn't bud out the following spring. I recorded regrowth didn't start till 10 days after our historical last frost date. But the tree did come back strong, gaining 3 ft as I took the picture today.

I don't know if this year it is mature enought to produce fruits and survive the winter or not. I am just happy to see it thrive. Worst comes to worst, if it still dies back, I have a dozen strong mulberry poles to harvest.

You could try over-wintering a cutting indoors maybe.

That mulberry looks great May!

If you have some larger sized rocks available, I've heard good things about placing them near the tree to absorb heat during the day and release it at night during the cooler weather, creating a warmer microclimate near the tree.

I think I'm going to try it out this winter and see if helps mine make it through the winter this year.

Hope you get some tasty mulberries soon!

Steve Thorn wrote:
If you have some larger sized rocks available, I've heard good things about placing them near the tree to absorb heat during the day and release it at night during the cooler weather, creating a warmer microclimate near the tree.

I will sure give it a try. Thanks.

'pakistan mulberry' among online dealers is a mess. some are cold hardy some are not. some are european species, some north american, some south asian, some hybrids. true Morus macroura is barely hardy to zone 9.

it will be interesting if you get fruit to see how long and tasty they are, just know more likely than not you have nigra, alba or rubra, not macroura (not that that is necessarily a bad thing, most mulberries are tasty)

So I have a Pakistan mulberry and I’m growing in Florida zone 9a. My Pakistan took 4 or 5 years to fruit from a cutting. My tree was about 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide. The main trunk being almost 1 foot thick. I found, “the best fruit grows on branches where I didn’t prune or cut back.” - this is important. Also Pakistan mulberry is not a cross between Morus ruba/alba. Pakistan is it’s own species, Morus macroura.

So my mulberry has been killed back twice but is still getting bigger every year. It's very bushy with two dozen branches straight up to 10 to 12 ft tall. I am trying the festooning technique by bending down the outter branches. Hopefully we will have a less erratic spring so the tree can save some energy for fruiting.

The same winter kill repeated for several years and finally I am seeing the chance to break the cycle this time. The mulberry tree/bush survived -1 F /-18 C in ground and the barks are green and healthy. I took a few cuttings indoors and they are pushing out buds. I am not sure what made the difference and it could from multiplefactors:

it's old enough
better nutrient management
favorable weather last fall (one month gap from first frost to first hard freeze so trees had time to acclimate)

The strongest trunk grew about 15 ft last year from ground and I count over 60 leaf nodes in the leader. Hopefully that is enough for juvenile to mature phase transition. If the new shoots don't get killed by late frost, I might be able to finally taste some Pakistani mulberries this year!

First time in six years that this Pakistan mulberry doesn't get winter killed to the ground. It started to leaf out in early April and new growths were damaged by the last freeze but grew back. The last two feet or so of each branch is dead, giving the highest leaf node number at 45. I am eager to see if it will finally start to produce.
The mineral elements I supplemented for this tree are Ca/S/B/Si. Maybe it is just coincidental, but all are related to cell wall strength and stress resistance.