Hey Guys,

Looks like I have several Mulberry trees I need to cut down. My plan is to wait until the fall when the leaves and mosquitos are gone. Anybody see a problem using them as YP spawning structure or at least as part of a brush pile in the pond?

Thanks,

Bill D.

Bill, cut a piece of it and put it in a bucket of water. After a couple of days toss in a couple of fish and see what happens.

Thanks Dave. Sounds like a good plan. I will report results.

I have loads of volunteer/bird planted mulberry trees, so I would love to see how this works for you..

I do this with everything but cedars.

Why not cedars Dave?

I prefer cedars for all of the close together limbs. They met the first bucket test and they last a long time.

However, I advise to test each type of tree before using.

Results are in. I soaked 5 pieces of green Mulberry about 1 inch diameter by 10 inches long in 3 gallons of pond water for 72 hours. The water was a little cloudy at the end of the 72 hours. I put in 2 BG about 2.5 inches long last evening and they were dead this morning. I also placed 4 BG in 3 gallons of fresh pond water last evening as a control and they were lively this morning.

Conclusive? I wonder if I used green wood from any deciduous tree if the result would be the same. Is the cloudiness of the water an indication something else is going on? Should only dead and cured branches be used for structure?

Hmmm....I think more investigation is warranted.

Has anybody else run a similar test using green wood from another species of tree? I would like to hear your results.

The decay of the wood may have contributed to the result, independent of toxicity. The cloudiness seems to indicate bacterial load.

That's what I am thinking as well so how to re-run the test and eliminate that variable? Shorten wood pre-soak to 24 hours maybe? Thoughts?

Since my initial fish kill, I'm pretty careful of this stuff. But, you need to put it all in perspective. Remember that one inch of water over one acre is about 27,000 gallons.

My disaster was from putting a big/huge pile of green oaks down into the bowl of the dry pond when the land was first cleared. I thought that big mass of wood would make great structure when it filled. Then we quickly got a 3 inch rain and I wound up with about 6 ft of water in the bowl. Within a week, it turned black but I still stocked. They died within hours. Over a month, I added enough chlorine(not recommended) to clean a dozen olympic sized swimming pools. After a couple of weeks, I put 3 or 4 BG from the creek in a minnow bucket and put it in the pond. They died within an hour. So, I pumped it dry and the Texas summer baked everything. I've had no problems since.

I can place a recently cut piece of oak on the shoreline. Within a couple of weeks, I can move it but the sand and water under it is black with leached out tanins.

I think that if I put a freshly cut 10 ft tall oak in the water, the tanins would leach out of it and the fish would probably avoid the area. When it dissipated into the surrounding water, I personally believe that it would be weak enough to not cause a problem.

And, according to Lusk, not all soils/water interact the same.

In a small container of water, I'll bet that most fresh wood will negatively effect the water.

Now, I let even cedars dry before I add them as structure.

Why take a chance?

Thanks Dave,

I am running the test again with less wood and shorter soak but, I think the answer is as you stated, let the wood dry before putting it in yer puddle.

Bill D.

New test....I placed 2 small sticks of green mulberry in 3 gallons of water and 2 small BG at the same time. 2 hours later I checked and the BG were dead. I do not think Mulberry trees will be used as structure in my pond!!!

If you want some cedar, I have plenty that you can cut and use.

Yeah, that is pretty quick. I doubt that was bacteria. It seems to indicate that something in mulberry is pretty toxic.

I've got mulberry in my little pond...this thread is making me consider pulling it back out...

My odd thinking about mulberry and eastern red cedar trees. The Chinese placed mulberry trees at around the edge of their ponds to create the greatest efficiency possible for their food and silk. The silk worms eat the leaves which in turn the worms produced the cocoons that contained the silk, and the mulberries dropped into the water and fed the carp they ate. I have tried to copy that somewhat, and the mulberries bring in birds that I photograph.

The eastern red cedar is growing in an area that I could hardly get anything to grow and in just the last 15 or 20 years they have become voluntary, I suspect from the warming of the weather. I used to see them only in southern Indiana.