Stone fruit pits are best sown in the fall, so they can naturally be stratified by winter. They need the cold to crack open the thick "shell". You cold try cracking th epit, to get to the "nut" on the inside (the viable part). That can be thrown in the fridge for 2 or 3 months. Plum pits tend to be smaller then peaches, so you may not be able to crack them without destroying the embryo. I would wait till the fruit is ripe in the fall, and plant the pits where you want them. Worse comes to worse, if they arent pallitable, you can always graft some more desirerable types..

I m relatively new to growing D.gigas, but so far it s going well. 5 out of 6 seeds germinated, in a warm mini-greenhouse, at about 30 degs celsius. It took about 2 weeks though. Soil is almost pure mineral, with just a little bit of organic. Seeds were covered with a thin layer of soil. I guessed they might be the same as cacti, needing light to sprout. That seemed to work. Pictures show them 1 month old. And yes, afaik, Laura is right - you need two plants (different genetic pool) in order to make seeds. At our local botanci gardens, they have an impressive group of plants, all coming from one mother plant - and they never produce seeds. A few pictures of those are here: https://write.less.dk/index.php/plants-from-socotra-yemen-at-the-botanical-gardens-copenhagen/ Thank you all - happy to learn from you!

Many of us are growing lychees in the northern climes. We will be keeping our lychees quite small, most likely under 8 feet. Only those with plenty of room and the means of taking care of them, allow their trees to get bigger. Most can be kept "dwarf" by pruning and restricting root growth. The Emperor lychee is considered a dwarf due to it's slow growth habit. While growing from seed is fun and in some instances, the only way to get a specimen, I believe everyone will agree when I say that it is not practical for many. If you are interested in propogation, then by all means, growing rootstock for later grafting is great. But if you are wanting something to fruit a lot sooner than that, then you should be considering purchasing grafted or air-layered plants from an on-line source. I was getting ready to say how interesting the bonsai lychee was until I noticed they were all silk!!

The trick is not letting the seeds dry out, this is crucial. Otherwise they won't sprout without agressive scarification. Just mash the berries (an immersion blender works wonders), collect the seeds and immediately place in a bag of moist soil in the fridge. Three months and they should go.