Sugar Maple Starts- To Pot or Not To Pot....

So I got my sugar maple starts in the mail (yay!) and put them in the fridge to stratify them (mimic the cold so they germinate).
Once they germinate, I am wondering if I should pot them and keep them close so I can tend them until they get large enough, or If I should plant them in their final location shortly after germination and just try to protect them? Trees take so long to grow, I'd hate to lose one to a deer or something... But on Paul's Survival Summit talk he mentioned transplants develop taproots instead of a taproot, so I was wondering if that applied to trees? And how long it is recommended to keep it in a container if I go that route (which I will have to for some since half of them will be leaving their temporary home at my MIL's when I get my own land)?
So thoughts?
Also wondering about soil type... We have areas of clay soil that get really dry and hard in the summer, areas that stay wet all year and/or are near a stream, and areas that are dry but not the clay-type soil.

Thanks!

sugar maples are fairly easy to transplant. I would recommend growing them for a year or two in a nursery bed rather than in pots. Just grow them like you would any vegetable in a garden, you can plant them very densely, every few inches. In the fall you can dig them up and plant them out. I think this works much better than pots because you get a healthier root system and you don't have to worry about potting mixes or watering nearly as much.