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euarto_gullible

Question About Plum Seed Dormancy

13 years ago

I gathered some plum seeds from some fantastic wild plums in the summer of 2007, dried them, and stored them in a pill bottle at room temp until last winter.

I tried cold stratification for half of them last year in moist potting soil in the refrigerator. After several months, none had germinated, and they had gotten moldy.

This year, I put them in a planter outside that I buried up to the soil line. I only did this last week, and we can expect some pretty cold nights here through March.

My question is how long of a period of cold do they need to break out of dormancy? Will a couple months of below freezing nighttime temps, with a few real cold snaps into the single digits and snow do the trick or would it need an entire winter? How long do plum seeds remain viable? If they fail to germinate by this spring, is there a chance they could still germinate next spring or should I dig them back up and try some other method (chemical scarification?).

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