Welcome to Garden Web. I thought you might like to know there is no email link on your member page, thus no way to email you. To set up your email, just go to the bottom on any page here, and click on Member Pages Then click on Edit your Personal Information, Page, and Preferences You will then probably be asked to login in again. Once there, set the drop down box to Show my email address to MEMBERS And then check the box Allow other users to send you email via forms at our site. That will place a link on your member page, and will also show your email address to anyone you email about a trade. Happy gardening and trading Sue

Rick @ Sheffield's Seed here. I'd like to comment on this post, having just seen it. I'm very pleased that so many people are making good comments about our seed. We do the best that we can to get in high quality seed, store it properly and ship it to our customers so it arrives in good shape. Quercus species are some of the hardest to work with when it comes to keeping quality high. Members of the White Oak group being quite a bit more difficult than those of the Red Oak group. We do store our oak seed just above freezing in a slightly humid cooler so they keep as well as possible. We have been able to store some species this way for over two years while maintaining good viability. We periodically float the seed and trash the floaters to help keep what we do sell the best quality. This past season we also started giving some seed lots a hot water bath to kill weevil larvae and eggs. 120 degrees F for 10-15 minutes kills the weevil without harming the seed. We have had some complaints from overseas customers about members of the white oak group arriving with sprouted and dead radicles. We don't import any Quercus seed for this reason and the fact that USDA requires fumigation on almost all seed lots of Quercus entering the USA. I would say shipping is our biggest problem as we don't have much control over how long the seed sits around in customs, etc. I'd be happy to hear any suggestions from members here on how we might improve our seed and service. Also, if you ever notice that we are out of a particular seed and you have it for sale, we may be interested in buying or trading!

yeah.. i am just slummin.. lol ... first i guess i am relying on your ID ... if correct.. white oak should be fully zone appropriate ... mine is anyway in z5 ... second.. again.. if ma nature sprouted them.. she ought to know best ... third .. in my z5 ann arbor area [actually adrian] ... they would have about another 60 days ... to grow that tap root before soil freeze ... before suspended animation occurs ... besides worrying.. i dont know what more you can do .. perhaps you should have tried a few in pots.. just to experiment ... ken

I don’t attempt to put them in the rootmakers until spring. Over the winter, I keep them either in Ziploc bags in the refrigerator, or, if they’ve already tried to sprout roots, I will put them in a container of vermiculite or even just a cheap commercial potting mix, with the root (if it exists yet) pointed down. Typically, if you keep the refrigerator as cold as possible, or stick them in the back of the fridge where it tends to run a bit colder, they won’t aprout early, but at slightly warmer temps, roots May grow a few inches, but not long enough to cause any real problems, and you can just stick them into the rootmakers in March or April. That’s how I do it. If by chance the root is actually longer than the bottom of the boot maker, it’s OK to cut an inch or so off as long as there’s no top growth, but I wouldn’t cut anymore than that. Through some experimentation, I found that when storing acorns, if you can keep them between 29 and 33F, they won’t sprout in the fridge. I know my refrigerator runs around 36°, right at the back in the bottom corner it does tend to stay closer to 32.