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.

Ok so I did end up buying a bunch of Ontario/NS grown peaches at various markets.  I labelled them clingstone and freestone (apparently freestone peaches tend to mature later in the season, does this mean they also bloom later?).
I bought and ate upwards  of 150 peaches.   This was fun.  I cleaned the pits with a wire brush and kept them in fridge to prevent from drying out.  Soaked them in hydrogen peroxide every couple weeks to prevent mold.  
Sometime in November I cracked all of the pits.  Ended up with about 80 clingstone and 30 freestone which looked viable.  I rinsed the seeds with hydrogen peroxide, and put them in a damp mix of peat moss and sand.  The first 2 months were important.  Lots of the seeds rotted away (this could be due to injury on the seeds from cracking the pits).
Most importantly, I was surprised to see some freestone germinating in late December.  I planted them in pots and they have now been growing 6 weeks.  I keep them in a south facing window and with a real cold blast we had here I thought I had killed them.  But after clipping them they grew back to what they are today (I have attached a picture of them in the window).
Otherwise, I haven't had many rot in the last 6 weeks, but they are really starting to germinate even though I keep my fridge at 36...
I can't complain.  The effort has paid off.  I'm a bit worried about having to start most of these trees in March and how much more I will have to spend on soil/pots.  I wonder how they will adjust to the frost when it comes, and if they will go dormant early.    If the trees do not do well I will try again, but next time I will keep the seeds in their pits, in an effort to delay germination until late spring.

Johnny

We grow Siberian peaches from seed. The trees are rather short-lived and so whenever we have a crop we plant the pits so we'll have eventual replacement stock. The first year we did this I fussed around by putting the pits in trays in the root cellar, tried various methods of keeping them moist (plastic cover, misting, etc.) Ran out of trays and containers with lots of pits leftover so threw the rest into the compost heap. Only one of the cellared pits germinated but the compost heap had many peaches germinate when the soil warmed up. Talking to a friend with more experience than we had said he always plants Siberian peach pits outdoors right after harvest. So now we make a nursery bed with rows about 6" apart and furrow the pits about 2" deep and packed into the rows so the pits are touching. Enough germinate so that we end up with a tree every 6" or so. We've also successfully done this with Siberian apricots and butternuts. Here in Minnesota we don't get a peach crop every year but the trees usually survive, for the most part, and will fruit in subsequent years when the conditions are more favorable. It's not always the severe winter cold temps that are the problem. Usually it's spring frosts after blossoming. The apricots are worse in that regard as they flower waaay too early. Last year was the first real crop in 14 years and I would have to say that they really weren't worth waiting for. Nothing beats a tree ripened peach, but when it looks like there won't be a crop (no blossoms or too early flowering) we make sure we have a good patch of melons planted (Petit Gris de Rennes is our favorite). Dehydrated melon is a superior replacement for dehydrated peaches.

I find it easy to plant peach and apricot pits in the fall, directly where they will grow. I kinda like sprouting them in damp soil in the refrigerator, cause I can plant them exactly where I want them. But for the ultimate simplicity, I do direct seeding in the fall, or very early spring.

My seed planted apricots have about 2 weeks variation in flowering times. That helps a lot with flower survival in early spring.

My MIL brought peaches over to share back in July from her friend's old tree, so we ate and enjoyed and I saved a pit, planted it in a pot and have deliberately ignored it ever since to see if it will do its thing.  Come spring's arrival (which is close here) I will check on it.  I too enjoy growing trees from seed and I have 2 ornamental plum trees who are starting their second year, and an Italian plum which is starting year five which a friend grew from pit in her yard at her old house.  My baby maple tree is also starting year two, its my surprise baby.
Hoping my peach pit takes and I can add a baby peachy to my flock of little trees.