Looking for advice on peach seed storage over winter.

Hello fellow growers,

I live in Pictou County Nova Scotia and have become rather passionate about growing  trees from seed.  Giant sequoia, douglas fir, cedars, all sorts of oaks/hybrids, tulip trees, catalpas, pecans, bald cypress, etc etc. just about anything that I can plant and know with some authority it will not become invasive.  I'm now starting to focus on fruit/nut trees.

I'm very interested in the prunus genus because it is my understanding (everything on the internet is true right?) that many prunus grow relatively true to seed.  As I have a very limited budget, this works in my favour.   As far as nuts/fruits so far I have successfully germinated and planted pawpaw, butternut, japanese walnut, english walnut, manchurian apricot and a few chilean peaches I got from the grocery store.

Here's my question.  It's finally peach season in Ontario/NS.  I have collected and eaten some great peaches.  What now?  Will the seeds keep in their pits in the fridge?  What have you guys done?  I've purchased some seeds before that were still in their pit (almonds) and they were nearly all rotten from being kept in peat moss in the fridge.  The chilean peaches worked fine because I was able to crack the seed out immediately and after a short cold stratification they germinated.  Obviously I want to wait until early spring before I start these peaches.  I have about an acre of north-facing hill (I was told this would  benefit the peaches by keeping them from blooming early in the spring) to fill with these peaches.  

Let me know if you have any advice.  I have learned a lot from these forums.  I appreciate it.

-Johnny

i don’t know how they would do in your winter, but my standard tree-or shrub-seed winter stratification technique is to plant in large nursery pots and cover with something semi-permeable (could be mesh of some sort, could be some thickish plastic with slits cut in), water in, and leave in a semi-shady spot from whenever i collect them until things warm up the following spring. this has worked just fine for peaches for me in mountain north carolina (and many other things). it may be necessary to dig pots n a cover with mulch or something farther north?

greg mosser wrote:i don’t know how they would do in your winter, but my standard tree-or shrub-seed winter stratification technique is to plant in large nursery pots and cover with something semi-permeable (could be mesh of some sort, could be some thickish plastic with slits cut in), water in, and leave in a semi-shady spot from whenever i collect them until things warm up the following spring. this has worked just fine for peaches for me in mountain north carolina (and many other things). it may be necessary to dig pots n a cover with mulch or something farther north?

This is certainly the direction I will be moving in for most tree seeds.  Let nature do its thing.  If it works for you it might work for me!  Mountain NC peaches sound nice.

I am going to collect (eat) maybe 50.  I will keep some in the fridge, some I will bury now and if they dry up before winter that could be ok.  I have read that many prunus seeds can be dried and rehydrated and remain viable... I just have no experience with it.

the only danger with this method is to really rodent-attractive seeds like chestnuts and acorns. those can use a bit more thought put into defenses.