Mulberries

[Den Socling]

Last year, I had a fence row of healthy Mulberry trees. The birds planted them and they protected my cherries from the birds. This year, I have a row of dead or dying Mulberries. Every other species looks healthy. I have never seen anything with such a rapid and complete mortality rate. Does anybody know what happened?

Also, the weird spring screwed up my lilacs I think. They are all over my property and the ones that get enough sunlight are covered with flowers this time of year. This year, they look healthy but only one bush bloomed. It really makes you wonder what's going on around here.

[SwampDonkey]

Kinda like my yard ash, no bugs, nothing that I can see. Green one week, black and stone dead the next.  No shortage of water neither. :

[Norm]

Did you get a late freeze Den? Ours were all leafed out because of an early spring when we got a couple of nights of below freezing temps. It killed the leaves on all of the mulberries. Ours started leafing out just about 3 weeks later.

[Den Socling]

That's what I thought Norm. I just looked at them again. On one small tree (~20'), I saw 2 leaves. On another larger tree, there is a few leaves on the lower branches but none near the top. Looks like I'm going to have a mess to clean up.

[Phorester]

Only one species affected tends to rule out freeze damage - all trees would exhibit symptoms of this. My first thought on something like this is herbicide damage.  Was any spraying done near the mulberries last year or this year? Agricultural, etc.?

[Den Socling]

Nope. No spraying. "Country" lawns on both sides of the fence line. What a mess it's going to be picking up all of those branches.  :(

[trim4u2nv]

We had a late freeze and it killed every sprout on our mullberries.   Just saw some new leaves coming in yesterday (before this, they really looked dead or dying.)   Must of been just the right freezing conditions as our other fruit trees look ok.  The peaches have a little frost burn.  Our apples fared better with some leave tip burns.  Our asparigus was right on time just cooked some last night.

[Den Socling]

Boy it would be nice if it's just the sprouts.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen aspen flower in the fall after a cold spell which breaks dormancy and we have a long warm stretch. Then the cold which is inevitable kills the flowers off (black). They seem to recover in the spring but you'll notice the damage a couple years on the twigs. Aspen will flower quick as was witnessed this March when we had that 4 days of 70 degree heat.

[Norm]

We had only three species loose the leaves after the freeze. Elm, mulberry, and honey locust the rest seemed unaffected. Our fruit trees didn't have the leaves hurt but the fruits died.

[Al_Smith]

I've got some female mulberries in the fence row .As luck would have they are far enough away  the starlings don't make bombing runs on the house .Those birds can eat a lot of berries but it goes through them like water through a sieze .Must be about like beer ,you can only rent it .

[Den Socling]

Deer and bears also love mulberries. The poop gets so thick under the trees that I can't let my grandkids in to pick berries.

[Al_Smith]

 :D If there were bears present you couldn't get me to pick the berries either .Nooooooooooooooooo.

[SwampDonkey]

Bears will eat anything. Yesterday I saw some "piles" full of plastic out in the woods on a tree plantation. Must be good roughage. The block had pales, several feet of water hoses and bags of soil around as well as some round scalps of soil dug up. Looked like 4 or 5 years old. You can guess what it was all used for. :D

[Al_Smith]

Bears will eat anything.  :D

Well yeah that's what concerns me .I'm not going to give them a chance to taste filet of Al not no but 'ell no .

[Den Socling]

OK this leads to a bear story. I'll try to be brief. We were on a canoe camping trip with a bunch of friends. We were the last to leave camp when everybody else had the sense to head home. The plan was for me to ride my mountain bike to the truck and then hike back. Patti was in camp alone. Yep there was bacon grease in the fireplace, food odors all over and a bag of Granola. While I'm hiking back, here comes Patti running at full speed yelling BEAR! When she stopped, she told me about a monster bear in camp. All of our camping equipment was there with the boat. The bear had to go. I headed to camp and picked up a boat paddle. The bear was there eating Granola. It wasn't that big. I yelled but he/she wouldn't leave. I thought about whacking it with the paddle but I wasn't sure what the bears' reaction might be. So we just waited for the Granola to be gone. Luckily, when the Granola was gone, the bear headed over the bank. Unluckily, it was in very high ferns between us and the boat. Believe me. We didn't like going through those ferns and knotweed but we didn't see that bear again.

[Den Socling]

Hey! My Mulberries are growing leaves.  8) Even one that I was sure was dead. I have a few dead branches but it looks like all of the trees are going to survive. It sure was one weird spring! One cold snap must have hit them exactly at the wrong time.

[Norm]