Hello Alan If you mean Callicarpa americana (aka French mulberries), they're not real mulberries (Morus alba) and they're not French (native to Texas), but it seems they do produce fruit.
Morus alba's a great energy tree. Great everything tree. Have a look at this - it might give you some ideas for the French mulberries: http://journeytoforever.org/edu_silk_mulberry.html Mulberry trees Re cattails, check this out: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Typha.html Typha ssp. Kudzu is excellent fodder for grazing animals, high protein, better than alfalfa and more productive. Good pasture, and it makes good hay. It's a legume and fixes a lot of N - generally a soil improver. It's a deep-rooter and brings up a lot of minerals from the deep subsoil. It produces large, starchy tubers, widely used as food in the East and elsewhere in the tropics. It's also excellent at stabilising steep slopes, and as a general anti-erosion crop. The best way to eradicate it is to turn it into, first, beef, and second, pork. After the cattle are done, the pigs will root the rest out in search of the tubers, both animals manuring the land as they go. A bit of care taken with the next crop should do it. Americans and also Australians it seem to hate the stuff, but where I've seen it growing wild in the East it has not been much of a pest. I've never heard it referred to as a pest here. Kudzu should be a good energy crop, but I can't find any references. Keith Addison >I spent a large portion of my day today clearing French Mulberry trees >from my mother's land. > >As I was cutting and disposing of them and cursing the <epithet> who >introduced this species to Florida the thought came to mind about using >these cursed things for something productive. > >The trees themselves grow obscenely fast, and a summer's growth will >produce a trunk the size of a man's leg and twenty feet tall. They >spread by the roots, and if allowed to they will quickly take over an >area. They will grow back out of cut stumps. Cut pieces will take root >and grow. They grow faster than any of our native species, and will >outcompete them and displace them fairly quickly. > >Among mulberries, cat tails, and kudzu they're the plants that ate >Florida! > >They grow without need of fertilizer. They provide their own pesticide >in the form of a species of tiny black ants which seem to be symbiotic >with them. [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >While the wood is very soft, brittle, and breaks easily, the bark >contains long, straight, and very strong fibers. These fibers are >strong enough that if you break a stick the bark will usually just split >lengthwise and let the broken ends of the stick poke through. It is >then possible to pull the wood right out of the bark leaving the bark >almost completely intact. Might these fibers be useful in textiles or paper? > >The only use I can think of for the wood is biomass fuel, because it is >too soft and brittle for anything else. The wood is so soft they can be >cut down easily with just loppers, and several of the trees I cut today >were nearly 3 inches in diameter, the limit of what my loppers would >cut. > >The worst thing about them is the even though they're called "mulberry" >trees they don't produce any edible fruit that I am aware of. > > >Alan >-- >Aviation is more than a hobby. It is more than a job. It is more than >a career. Aviation is a way of life. >A second language for the world: www.esperanto.org >Processor cycles are a terrible thing to waste. www.distributed.net > >Biofuel at Journey to Forever: >http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html >Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. >To unsubscribe, send an email to: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
