advice for planting sprouted pecan seeds?

A while back I put 3 or 4 dozen of a really good southern arkansas pecan into our refrigerator packed in damp sawdust. just recently I took them our for more space for food....I have been moving the bag around outside for a week or so and just now dumped them our and saw that many are sprouted. I think I have caused them to be really out of sync with their normal germination but thought I would plant anyway....take the pick and pop them in all over and probably forget where they are as usual and maybe some will survive to maturaty. I think they will need 'nurse' trees maybe for protection.
I wondered if anyone has had good luck planting sprouted seed and if they had any more advice?

I'm not the expert on sprouting pecan trees, but the $#%@^^$ squirrels that I share this bit of the Georgia pine woods sure are. They have them coming up all over my garden. When I dig hugelbeds, I can count on hitting a few nuts in the process of germinating as you describe.

As long as they are early in the germination process, I think you can just put them where you would like the tree to eventually be and not run over them too many times with the lawn mower. The first thing the seedling does is to send down a taproot and get it well established, that's why little 6" twigs of pecan tree keep coming back again and again, like bad Mexican food. About the only way you can keep it from coming back is to get a good grip on the seedling and yank out the whole taproot, usually after a heavy rain.

Good luck! (Even though you really don't need any)

Thank you, John....that is pretty much what I needed to hear. A few have 3 or 4 inch tap roots already and others are at all stages of growth including some that haven't sprouted quite yet. I wish there was some rain in the forecast....I am not gonna water them in (I say that all of the time and then find myself carrying out buckets of water).