The Unstoppable Power of Bamboo

River Cane Plant and Seeds -North America’s Indigenous Bamboo

When I lived in town with my family, I had a jogging route part of which was on a brick road on a steep hill. On the corner was a beautifully landscaped home of many fruits and ornamentals including a nice clump of bamboo. At that time it was not a plant you normally see in southwestern Michigan. The bamboo provided privacy and sound buffering to the front and side yards. It easily grew up to the second story window. Just by luck, I met the owner when he visited my farm and agreed to give me a tour of his yard. The bamboo was contained within a small area yet provided a huge benefit to the house and occupants. He invited me over for meditation which was scheduled for four hours on a Sunday. This was a bit long for my family life but I thanked him profusely. Later I hired someone for my farm who rented a portion of the house and lived there. He said it was a wonderful shade from the plant all throughout the house especially when the wind blew. You could see the design patterns of the leaves dancing on the walls within the house. It was accompanied by the music of birds who perched within it. Decades later in another cosmic twist of fate, I happened to be at a nearby garden center when I overheard one of the employees talk about ‘killing the bamboo’ for a customer. I asked and soon found out the new owners of that same home were not fans of the bamboo. The employee told me bamboo was a dangerous invasive plant and very hard to get rid. It required multiple applications of a specific herbicide to kill. This highlights the love-hate relationship people have with bamboo. One year the plant is loved and cherished as a glorious landscape plant filled with cosmic possibilities. On Sundays incense and four hour meditations are within its vicinity. Songs of birds flooded the streets. The next day it’s dangerous and a destroyer of all things good. Toxic chemicals are needed to kill it entirely. Today a little planting of coneflowers sits near the curb with a sprinkling of coreopsis marking the end of an era.

“Hello, my name is Bob and I love bamboo.” Over heard from a bamboo support group.

Early on in my nursery I thought of the bamboo as impossible to grow in my climate. Cold hardiness was a big issue. Plants were never seed produced and involved large equipment to dig and transplant due to the massive root systems. It was not cheap. I kept trying to purchase bulk roots but they were always low quality and died during the first winter. Eventually I purchased the indigenous North American River cane bamboo. It had a more secure Zone 5 hardiness. I noticed that even mentioning I was going to plant bamboo created quite a stir of emotions. I love personal experience, good, bad or indifferent and the bamboo didn’t disappoint. I kept my love of it secret and told few. I really didn’t want to argue about its merits or food value from the sprouts.

My main question to folks dishing out advice is “have you ever tried to grow the bamboo?” And if yes, “what kind was it?” The devil was in the details. Most people had only heard of its effects in odd sorts of ways and had no direct experience. Eventually I began the process of producing River cane in my nursery from roots. It was slow to harvest and I had to extract soil with the roots to make it work as well as root prune the plants the year before digging. I had two forms of it. The Massachusetts selection was very uniform in spreading which produced linear roots with evenly spaced canes. I grew it on a sandy hillside which is the opposite of its native haunt of river bottomland. The second selection I obtained was a form found in North America which had even greater cold hardiness and runner production. Both of these selections produced delicious small sprouts in the spring. I had to limit the sales to twenty plants per year to keep my planting from disappearing entirely. Bamboo was becoming popular again with new varieties entering the marketplace too. There was less guilt associated with the clumping bamboo varieties. There was also correct ways to install the plant like my friend who lived on the brick road.

As time went on in my nursery life, I soon found several opportunities to develop cold hardy selections of a couple of species using seed produced plants. The way to do this is quite simple. It is similar to taking any zone 6 or 7 woody plant seedling and finding hardier selections in zone 5. I would grow a few hundred seedlings in an open polyhouse and let winter take its toll. The remainder of the seedlings would then be planted outside as a source of genetically different bamboo. The way bamboo is produced today is the opposite of this. They are all rooted from clones whether it is the clumping forms or runner types. Bamboo also has its own 6 mil weed barrier to prevent the runners from running and moving into unwanted real estate. It’s a whole production system. Yet beyond the landscape it does have the power to transform and have great positive environmental benefits. It can be ‘safe to use as directed’ and still be be a great part of agroforestry. This is where I left off with my research.

The seed of bamboo became available commercially and it was possible to obtain it here in the U.S. However, a law was put into place banning its import eventually reducing the available seed on the market. It was a tricky little grass to germinate but once started a white clean root pops out from the embryo. I focused on two species, timber canes——Vivax bamboo and Edible Sprouts—- Edulis bamboo. There was quite a bit of loss during one winter at minus 17 F. I did manage to squeak out small populations of both species. After a decade of growing, it was not the bamboo I thought they would be. They did not take over the universe. My bamboo forest is more of a bamboo grassland than anything. Yet, even on a small scale and having a diversity of seedlings you can see the difference in the individual plants genetic make up. They easily integrated into my farm under the black walnuts and hybrid American chestnuts.

My goal was to develop construction grade varieties and edible shoot selections. I like the forest type bamboo growing upwards to 70 feet or more. It would take a larger population of 100,000 seedling plants to find hardier and even more robust selections. Bamboo in nature is often a specific clone like the clonal wild blueberry plant on the east coast that covers several acres. It is a specific application with a specific selection needed. Then you can harness the power of bamboo. It might not make a great landscape plant for you and like mint might ruin your flower garden state of mind. But as a source of commercial fiber, timber, lumber, plastic substitute, cotton substitute, flooring, scaffolding, chairs, tables, damn near everything and edible shoots we are on to something unbelievably powerful and life saving and life supporting. These selections could be employed and used to a greater degree in areas where scale, control and use would dominate the plantings in commercial settings. For vigor and health we need the runners of the world. Dense, solid roots holding the soil as a precious resource and slowly bringing back those soils currently filled with GMO corn and soybean. Those soils are ruined and may take a generation to cleanse themselves of the poisons we have put in them. Even if we treat it as a bamboo monoculture or develop it as a bamboo polyculture, it does not matter. Bamboo could easily purify those soils while making our life on planet earth easier and more productive. The power of bamboo is the power of grass. One sheath at a time, creating a forest of perennial possibilities while it forges us ahead in permanent tree crop agriculture.

Think it all started on a corner house on an old brick road.

Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

Paulownia: Grow Your Own Home-It Zooms

One of my first acquaintances in the tree crop arena was a research technician in the pharmaceutical industry. He was very passionate about growing his own firewood. This was in an era when the hybrid-popular market was in full swing because of rising energy costs. Everyone wanted fast growing trees, especially for firewood to heat their homes with. The idea was based on growing a tree with a quick turnaround rate from planting to harvest. Specific selections were developed that were easy to propagate by dormant cuttings. You would stick the cuttings in the ground in rows similar to Christmas trees. He began developing his own selections based on this same model. He told me he found several large popular trees free of canker and the normal dead limbs which is normal in this genus. Many of them were also sterile and free of the giant clouds of seeds that are often produced. Using this same model for lumber to grow your own home is possible if it is built to scale as well as finding the right species. There is no shortage of fast growing trees one could use.

Such is the case for Paulownia. Not many people know this tree in Michigan. You would see the Empress tree advertised in the Sunday papers as “the tree that zoomed up” as an ornamental tree with lavender bell-shaped flowers. Every now and then I would see one fried back to the ground as a sort of hail Mary to fast growing trees. From a distance it looks like a catalpa tree. One Paulownia tree I still drive by regularly sits with four trunks and a top barely making 20 feet after 30 years. It is wedged between the sidewalk and the street. The attempt was made to block the view and noise of the street. Hybrid willows soon took that market as the substitute “zoomer” tree for cold climates. The minus 16.6 F limitation of Paulownia was just too much to ask for in Michigan where minus -25 F is common.

I too gave it a go with my limited germplasm starting in the early 1990’s. Like everything I grow, I started from seed. It is fortunate that the Empress tree historically has been used for both its high value lumber and the ornamental landscape trade. It was more than just firewood or wood pulp. It had high value and like black walnut had a following of experimenters and growers. For the United States, Paulownia was an accidental introduction into the U.S. as packing peanuts and then dumped in places like this New York city harbor I was at while at while visiting family. These dumps created small colonies some of which still persist to this day. See below. Growing out of solid rock this was the ideal location for Paulownia. It entered and parked.

I used seeds from the most northern wild trees and tried to find potential hybrid trees collected from arboretums. Above all, I was testing the waters of hardiness. I began throwing out batches of seedlings that fried after a cold winter. It was a gritty not pretty selection process. It was less than one per one hundred ratios as survivors go. The throw out pile took on a life on its own too. The toasted trees were grown in paper pots of which I would pitch them into an open grassy field at my farm. With living roots still intact, some of the trees hung on. A couple of the trees emerged as winter hardy past minus 27F. A second group of intentionally planted wild germplasm trees was also making headway. This area pegged a minus 29F once. The deer were rubbing them periodically. Surprisingly, the speed of callus was also fast which closed the entire wound the following season.

My final ‘hail Mary’ began with the second generation of a Paulownia lilacina tree at my farm which set seed. This was a rare event. Apparently, this tendency in cold climates has been noticed in other parts of the world where the tree has limited reproduction from seeds. This second generation produced 7 additional trees which also showed zero winter damage. These were planted recently near the original tree picking up real estate of the hybrid American chestnuts, hybrid oaks and walnuts.

It is easy to see the possibilities of Paulownia. I went online and purchased Paulownia wood. I watched many Youtube videos on Paulownia cultivation. I took out a log I cut from one of my first Paulownia trees and began putting it to use in my woodworking. I’m thinking about buying a Paulownia electric guitar. I’m still looking. Yet, I still feel I am one tree short of a full rack. I am missing collaboration and secondary monoculture plantings to scientifically analyze and test my trees in other locations throughout the state of Michigan. This may sound sacra religious, but you need a monoculture to make this happen efficiently. You need to allow the roots to resprout and grow as a regenerative perennial based woody crop plant the same way popular is grown and harvested today. Monoculture is not our enemy. Monoculture can be the start to polycultures. Paulownia could be used in novel ways outside of a plantation. It is the most valuable woody crop plant available today. Paulownia has a place in the wood industry just like black walnut and black locust. I’m hoping for a fast and straight growing osage orange tree next.

Trees are zooming by. The empress has spoken.

Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

Interesting Characteristics of the Paulownia Tree and the Things Surrounding Its Cultivation

Is considered the world’s fastest growing woody tree. 8-12 feet per year in temperate climates.
Has nearly double the fire-retardant properties of pine.
Has the highest strength to weight ratio of any wood compared to any other tree. Similar to balsa in weight but much stronger. The wood is soft and easy to work. I notice it ‘dents’ easily. So for woodworking, it needs a hard finish.
The turn around rate from planting to harvest is between 8-12 years. Similar to Christmas trees in Michigan. At my farm, in southwestern Michigan it may take longer.
Specific named clonal selections are sterile and free of seeds. This prevents unwanted spread outside the planting areas which makes it easier for the farmer to manage. Some selections do not flower, and others naturally have a low reproduction rate. At my farm, there has been zero natural regeneration from seed. The seed needs to fall on bare soil to sprout. In twenty years, only once did my mature trees fruit. Over a million seeds per pound. My tree tree produced about 6 ounces of seed. The seed only remains viable for one year.
Fast growing selections are done by rooted-root cuttings. Root cuttings are clonal and capture the fastest growing trees with the largest diameter trunks. Phoenix One and Shandong are two of a few showing remarkable large diameter trunks nearly double or triple other seedlings. BioEconomy Solutions has developed very fast growing and sterile hybrids by cross breeding three species.
Paulownia shows remarkable regeneration. After harvest, the roots are kept active and resprout into a new tree. One established a single root at my farm grew a top 10 feet in the second season.
Listed as an invasive species in several southern states as well as worldwide, Paulownia seed free cultivars are a means to grow the tree as a source of wood outside the ornamental market the same way sterile Miscanthus is currently being grown for bedding and cellulose production. Some places allow it in that category. It will take an industry to challenge the laws that prohibit the plant even if it is sterile or flowerless. A good example of this scenario is Berberis (barberry) where even seedless and rust resistant varieties are prohibited despite solving the ‘problem’ of invasiveness and wheat rust. The laws are written this way and do not allow it to exist in commerce. There is also a no ‘use’ allowance. It is worse than the Ribes genus in some ways. I call it the ‘it’s still a hammer’ law. For instance, if I want to grow autumn olive for juice on a commercial scale I would be prohibited from that use in Michigan the same way if it was wildlife food. Possibly there is permitting that would allow it in the future if it is not already established. As you know, you can hurt your thumb with a hammer. Ban the hammer. Or if you want, you can build a beautiful home.

Growing wild forms of Paulownia tomentosa are one means of finding hardier selections into a full Zone 5. This paricular grouping of 10 trees (above image) were grown from seed collected in the wild from Japan. Two of the trees have shown remarkable hardiness. Backed by Cornelian cherry and Chickasaw plums, the chickasaw plums are slowly colonizing this area taking over the understory of the Paulownia. One tree flowered last year but no seed was set. The tallest tree is 20 feet high. Pruning is required to accentuate the growth rate and minimize sprouting from the base which is common with this species.

Rediscovered Fruit: The Cornelian Cherry

On a camping trip when I was in high school I ate a bunch of bunchberries, Cornus canadensis. It is a common groundcover found in the northern woods of Michigan. The edible wild book that I had said they would sustain you. This was true. It was bland but it was edible.

Through my camping experiences I found many of the shrub dogwoods had a similar type of texture and flavor. As I started growing the silky dogood, Cornus ammom, in my nursery for wildlife use, I had heard about a culinary type of dogwood used for food for generations in central Europe called the Cornelian cherry, Cornus mas. It was of great interest to me to hear about the cherry-sized fruits used historically the same way sour cherries are used today. Where would I find such a tree already fruiting? It was not a common tree in the nursery industry and no examples could be found in any landscapes I was familiar with.

Not long afterwards, I found you could easily spot it in March with its faint golden yellowish green flowers when nothing else was flowering. It often flowered before forsythia. This plant was used in many of the older homes in the city as well as some college campuses. My experience of the plant changed when I happened to be in the older part of town and noticed several large cornelian cherries fruiting surrounded by a parking lot and a sidewalk. Here I could taste the ‘wild’ cornelian cherry. The extreme tartness was something to appreciate much like the high vitamin C acerola berries that are used in supplements. Two major roads in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan intersect there and the red stains on the cement were clearly visible at the stop light. I knocked on a few doors and got permission to collect and sweep the parking lot. It was a non-profit organization who rented the home, and no one would park their cars underneath the plants during fruit drop. For me it was a glorious mess. Now I could obtain fresh seeds and eat plenty of the fruit while picking away. Normally I would just suck on them like throat lozenges one at a time. I would then process the bulk of the fruit back at my nursery for seeds for planting. I even hand picked some fresh fruit for my jam making. The high pectin fruit would make a dense spread rich in red color and flavor. People spoke highly of it despite its acidic nature.

If the light was red at the corner, people really stared at our fruit shenanigans. Sometimes we would climb up the trees a little and shake the fruits on a tarp below or use pole pruners to release the fruits. It rained fruits at times because the yields were significant on these old trees. Then we would sweep up the mess with push brooms. Since it was an area with international students, occasionally someone would yell out from their car, “We have this in my country” or “I know what this is.” As if it was a secret handshake to a world of unknown flavors, the cornelian cherry spoke to people who wanted to let me know their connection to the plant. Several people stopped by on the sidewalk and I would ask if they would like a taste. I was happy to see their expression on their faces. Students from Iran, Hungary and China all knew the fruit. Not everyone liked it in the fresh state but smiles erupted despite the tartness. It was the ‘cornel’ dogwood. Dried, made into drinks, compotes, and olives it was collected and harvested the same way tart cherries are used in Michigan. Because of the chart-topping Vitamin C and tartaric acid, it was like a sweet tart candy on a tree.

The Cornus mas was a forgotten fruit plant and was only remembered as an early flowering ornamental plant in North America. It fell into the forsythia camp of spring flowers. Few knew about the fruit let alone how to make something delicious from it. When the plantings at my farm started fruiting, I would often make jam and offer taste testing at the farm shows I was displaying at. Processed with sweeteners, it became a whole new fruit. Once made into jam, syrup or salsa the fruit became known again as worth growing even on a small scale. Today those trees on that corner in the city are long gone. They were replaced with less obtrusive bushy tufts of native bunch grass, daylilies and stone. The cement painting done by the Cornel has been erased by time.

I too know that fruit. We have this in my country.

Enjoy. Kenneth Asmus

Flowering Cornus mas just opening. Look for it in the spring.

From Seed to Fruit: Cornus mas

Cornelian cherry can easily be grown from seed. The seedlings are almost always heavy bearing and produce similar fruit in size, shape and flavor. It is a very uniform population of fruiting plants with similar characteristics. Although the plant is self-fertile producing both male and female blossoms on the same plant, it appears from my plantings that having several plants near each other improves the yields. It takes between 4 to 8 years to bring the plant to fruit from seed. Plants are usually 6-8 feet tall at this point. Fruit is produced all along the inside of the limbs in clusters and increases with age. Mature shrubs can produce upwards of 50 pounds of fruit.

The seeds have a long dormancy. They require contact with the soil which breaks down the hard seed coat. This takes from 2- 4 years to release the multiple embryos found within the seed so each seed can have 2-3 individual plants within it. Many of the seeds start sprouting in the second dormancy after winter. This would be a warm and cold treatment twice before sprouting. After the second year some seedlings will continue to emerge after the third winter and a few even into the fourth year. This is just common with a multiple embryo seed and a seed coat which is extremely hard and dense. Plant ½ to 1 inch deep. Tamp into the soil good as they tend to migrate to the top over time.

Cornelian cherry can be grown commercially from seed as a fruiting plant for processing. There are no insect or disease issues with trees or fruit. Frost seems to have a very limited or no effect on the flowers even if the trees open in February or March. They flower based on air temperature and warm spells will cause them to flower quickly much faster than apricot or cherry. The flowers are used by different species of hoover flies and solitary bees. Since it is very early in spring few bumblebees or honeybees will use them to any degree unless it is a late spring year. Cornelian cherry in one of my plantings is heavily producing despite being in the shade of walnuts and hickories. As an understory tree in an agroforestry application, it could provide a source of fruit in semi-shaded conditions.

Two seed sources which worked well at my farm was “Redstone” and “Hungarian”. Redstone was a seed selection from Arnold Arboretum. The fruit quality was slightly less astringent with its slightly larger than normal dark red fruits. Hungarian was seed purchased from fruiting cultivated plants in Hungary. The robust large shrub is heavy bearing producing uniform fruits in great quantity. Other seed sources were not inferior in any way. Most of my plantings were done with both arboretum and private landscape plants. All produced good quality fruit. There are cultivar selections which have improved the edibility of the fruit in its fresh state having higher sugar content or less ascorbic acid content. Dark red fruit is preferred with a smoother flavor with less tartness. Yellow fruiting ones also fall into this camp. These varieties could add to the flavor profiles of the cornelian cherry as a cultivated fruit. Most are not widely available and are expensive to produce taking upwards to three years just to grow the rootstock. This plant could easily grow in short season areas as ripening is from August to September at my farm in southwestern Michigan. It is hardy into zone 3.

Wood is Good: American Chestnut

In my senior year in college, I was employed as a gardener for a home that was near a nature reserve in the city. From time to time, I would cross the street with a wheelbarrow full of spoiled apples harvested from the perfectly manicured lawn I was tending and pour them down a steep slope. It was here in that oak woodland where I saw my first chestnut tree. It was over two feet in diameter and at least fifty feet tall. The ground had several layers of nut burrs underneath it. I was not aware of this tree and looked it up in one of my botanical books. The tree is found sporadically in southern Michigan. Because of the location of the tree and the value of the land, several new homes went up there after the land was sold by the city. The tree was eventually removed to accommodate a garage. I went back to collect nuts before it disappeared forever. There must have been another one nearby because the burs had a few solid seeds within them. Without a pollinator, the nuts would have all been blanks. I grew about a dozen seedlings from that tree and planted them at my farm. They grew unbelievably well however they eventually succumbed to blight right about when they started to fruit. I knew this was going to happen so I positioned them near a fence line where they could be cut easily. That took about ten years. Luckily, I harvested one log from the best tree and stored it in my barn in the rafters. Almost four decades later I decided to take up the challenge and make something useful from it. That day is today.

Wood Characteristics

The grain patterns in chestnut wood are very pronounced and stunning. Even on small diameter pieces this pattern is apparent. The hybrid trees show the wide growth rings probably due to their fast growth, some of which are up to an inch in size. This fast growth creates a very uniform lumber. There is a simple way to use my repository to create even faster growing trees while at the same time having an orchard for nuts. Harvesting the nuts along with the trees for lumber could be done on a small scale now. Further improvements over time could bring together an industry of both nut and wood production which would be more profitable that either alone. The trees would be of a mixed hybrid nature of several species. This mixture greatly improves the odds of resistance and eventual immunity to blight.

Today American chestnut used for wood working is available only due to the reclaimed lumber business. Here planks are taken from old barns and homes where the trees were harvested from standing dead trees after the introduction of blight to North America. This lumber can have drill holes in it from different beetle larvae. The holes give it the name ‘wormy chestnut’. It is the only form of chestnut wood.

According to one seller the planks can have a 20 percent loss on high-quality pieces for furniture making and a 40 percent loss on lower quality pieces used for craft projects. After scouring Etsy and eBay, most of the lumber sold has natural fissures and cracks in it despite it being milled again. Surprisingly some look very clean and smooth with no fissures too. That is a minor miracle for something that came out of barn used over a hundred years ago. It is considered very rot resistant in that state. One source today on Etsy lists: 7/8 inch thick, six inches wide, three foot long boards. Cost: around 100 dollars. All of these wood sources are found in the historical range where American chestnut once flourished in quantity. You wouldn’t find this in Michigan. There is no new wood. It could be possible to harvest and mill a Chinese chestnut tree. They often have short trunks that branch 2-3 feet from the ground and are pruned for nut production. One of my first Chinese and Korean seed sources came from the late Norm Higgins near Lansing, Michigan. A few of his seedlings grew fast and had a timber-like form.

Wood Hardness:

American chestnut regional hardness rating is 80. (Listed chronologically from hard to soft.) It is close to Northern Catalpa and Yellow poplar. Chestnut is a soft wood and easy to work. The wood of the European Sweet Chestnut, Castanea sativa is harder with a 680 Janka rating. American chestnut has a 540 Janka rating. Some of the hybrid trees that I have would likely be in between those two numbers. There is differences in the grain patterns of the individual trees.

On growing the American Chestnut, Castanea dentata:

I used to receive a lot of calls in my nursery about the ‘pure’ American chestnut tree. The American Chestnut Foundation used to give out my name as a source for seeds and plants for both the hybrids and the species. Because of the susceptibility of the blight and no means of preventing or stopping it, I never sold the pure trees because I knew what would happen. But it is possible!! The only ‘for-sure’ locations you could grow the American chestnut would be in places completely isolated hundreds of miles from the nearest chestnut tree either planted or natural as well as far outside its native range. Because chestnut blight does survive on oak trees to a limited degree, it would be ideal to live in a completely different bioregion far from oak trees too. The western United States is one such region. You would have to start with seeds and never use nursery stock or scions for grafting. The reason for this is that blight, if it was on the surface of the seed would perish if planted in the soil. The blight on the seed would have no effect on the seeds germination and would not transmit. Scions or cuttings potentially could carry it. One year seedlings likely do not have blight on them but ideally if you went the seedling route you would want them grown in screened polyhouses as one year plants. The blight has to attach itself and grow which normally requires older stems, branches and trunks. I have seen two year old trees with blight on the stems but it is rare but never on one year plants. Ideally you would treat the blight as a living biohazard and be very strict about it. You would never want to visit other chestnut plantings. You would have to decontaminate your footwear and clothes if you did. Certainly you would not want to allow other nut growers to visit your magnificent American chestnut trees. That would be very risky. This has happened in the past! Many isolated trees have died either through wind born spores or people not knowing what they are doing. I knew of one American chestnut seed source super isolated in the far north in another state that many other nursery people used for seed. Eventually the whole planting became infested and died within a few years. It was thought at the time, people brought that one in. I remember talking to the late Dr. Dennis Fulbright, a leading research scientist on chestnut blight from M.S.U., about these isolated trees that look spectacular in Michigan. He knew of many American chestnut trees and would visit them periodically. I saw pictures of them and they were often huge trees. He said just in his short time of discovery several of these remote and old Michigan trees died just by wind born spores floating in. It was a game of chance and sometimes we blamed ourselves and sometimes nature. Today the community of American chestnut lovers include a wide range of ‘deliver us from the evil blight’ projects to simply discovering and disseminating nuts of wild trees that show immunity. I personally favor the latter.

I was rarely successful at telling people not to plant something more than the American chestnut tree. It was in the same boat as the white birch trees where borers turn them to sawdust. There was nothing I could say to warn people about the risk. They had read so much about the plant in its great historical past that it created a deep passion for a tree important to North America. For that reason I gave up and always encouraged people but never said anything about what would inevitably happen. I never sold the trees or nuts but did offer words of encouragement. By itself, that type of planting is where ideas can take root which then leads to a means to overcome the fear of loss. In the bioregion of the human brain, a beautiful tree flourishes. Who would say no to that?

Enjoy, Kenneth Asmus

American chestnut wood tables available starting November 1, 2026. For pick up direct at the farm. Appointment only.

From Seed to Table

First treatment with American grown tung oil. (Another valuable North American tree crop.)

Finding Mulberry: Morus rubra

Red Mulberry. Morus rubra. In a subdivision in Texas, this tree was pruned to accomodate the home and yard it was in.

I like mulberries and everything about them. It doesn’t matter what type they are. I made the selection Lavender Life red mulberry based on heavy fruit yields. It was not based on percentage of how much it may or may not be native or if it was a hybrid of another mulberry. For that you would need genetic testing. A colleague of mine found a subspecies of a hackberry not long ago. He sent it in to have it tested and sure enough he was correct in his taxonomy. They published a paper on it somewhere I hear. On the surface, mulberries vary tremendously from tree to tree and if you look online, it is common to see conflicting information. It is possible to ‘ball park’ it. Genetic testing takes the guess work out of it. Over the years people have sent me their thoughts on something I was growing which had variations found within the progeny. Once the ballpark species score card read, 2 for, 2 against and one hybrid tie on a type of Viburnum I was growing. “Not Sure” won that game. For me I go back to my seed sources and the story behind the plants. That is considered quaint and old-fashioned now in a world where everything has to be nailed down. My Viburnum story involved an actual research scientist, a fence row in Alberta, Canada and why someone would live in the middle of nowhere. Here is another story.

The Red Mulberry Morus rubra.

Starting in 2000 I began buying red mulberry seedlings from different wholesalers for my nursery for resale. It was probably the first time they were available nationwide. These are often grown in Missouri and North Dakota by massive nurseries cranking out millions of plants. They resale to other sub-wholesale nurseries some of which I used to buy from. The first batches of trees were across the map in terms of uniformity. I would buy anywhere from 250 to 1000 trees every year or two. In 2001 I potted up part of a batch and let them fruit in the greenhouse. It was kind of cool to see all the fruit on the three-year-old trees. I felt they did not have much of the red mulberry in them as far as I could tell but the fruit was huge in size. I mentioned this to the owner of a company I bought the seedlings from, and he said they were constantly improving the seed sources for that species as natural hybrids were common. Eventually those companies must have gone to more southern isolated seed sources like Texas and other southwestern seed sources.

Nice home and nice red mulberry I had a chance to visit.

You can find pure red mulberries in these isolated locations probably due to bird migration and coyotes who also eat the berries. There are also several Texas varieties of Morus rubra. I tried those at my farm, but the grafts failed over time. People know what the red mulberry is and have made selections from it and use it. Some of these places don’t have other mulberries just because the climate is so unforgiving to those species normally found in the northeastern U.S. The downside of this is the seedlings from these new southern batches were also not hardy and frequently came to me with major winter damage. I attempted again and reluctantly grew some of these sources in pots to fruit. This time they looked very true and uniform to me as far as my limited subjective experience. The original seven trees dropped down to two after deer and a few Michigan winters. This is Lavender Life. See below.

It is isolated to some degree, however roughly 200 feet away is a nice mulberry tree on my neighbor’s land and has been growing there for over 50 years. I have three red mulberry trees ten feet apart and I am assuming it is a cloud of red mulberry pollen around them like all mulberries which probably causes a great degree of self-fertility. However, that too would need to be genetically tested to see the percentage in the seedlings or seeds.

Here is the part where people tend to get upset. It doesn’t matter. What am I proving or disproving and how is that better? It appears I am only doing it to placate the nativists and purists. By the way, nature apparently doesn’t care either because hybrids are everywhere in the world of mulberries. Hybrid means different but it does mean bad or worthless. Unfortunately people view all mulberries as weed trees and undesirable. The red mulberry is not losing its identity. It’s adding to its identity while creating new expressions in the real world. That is adaptation. Mulberries have the highest chromosome count in all of the plant world. There is a reason for that. You could also grow it out by finding isolated trees while making new Morus rubra seed sources in an orchard. That I do care about, and it is of great value in generating greater diversity. It is very cool to think of a hardy form of pure red mulberry, however that is defined by the caretaker or breeder of the line of plants under cultivation. This is called domestication and you are domesticating a wild form of mulberry. Creating new seed sources is critical in that the diversity needed is way beyond the percentage points of native and not native. The mulberry genus is filled with rich flavors and sweetness. I’m picking some today and sharing them with my friend Not Sure.

Enjoy, Ken Asmus

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