Stone-fruit volunteers

[steev]

Where I've dropped and tilled in "waste" fruits of these, I'm seeing numbers of seedlings popping up; guess it's time to set up a seed-grown or rootstock nursery. Fits right in with my intent to eventually expand my cropping areas into my currently fallow acres, protected by trees for wind-breaks and fruit.

I already have a number of rootstocks, bought as such, and others, of uncertain utility, which have lost their grafts; must get these organized into a stooling bed.

[mskrieger]

Or ya could just wait and see what their fruit is like. In my experience, desirable stone fruits frequently have desirable offspring. The fruit is usually good to eat (especially peaches and plums).

[glenn10]

I have mostly seedling grown stone fruits at our house with a few named varieties. If it were not for planting peach pits I would never have eaten a homegrown peach as the named grafted varieties are not hardy enough (oh and have I spent some money buying them)to survive our winters. The toughest of the tough survive year after year and some of them are really really good, better than any peach found in the supermarket.
For the past few years we have gotten to eat loads of them with the exception of this year where we experienced the coldest harshest winter for many years. Most of the trees pulled through just fine bud no flower buds which is ok by me as I think we need a good solid year break from eating all those peaches.

Glenn

[synergy]

I read stone pit fruit do grow fruit very close to that from which the pit was saved so I have potted up a bunch this year hoping for seedlings next year. I probably ate more peaches, apricot and plums this year than any other year because I would buy specifically thinking I was getting both the food and seed for my own orchard : )

[Marches]

I grew some a couple of years back from peach stones, I planted some out of curiosity in some peat containers as I'd started some tomato plants very early. They were growing in a window but it was very early still and I don't think they had enough sunlight. Was still a fascinating process though, might try it again some time, maybe with a resistant variety such as Red Haven which I'm thinking of planting.

[darrenabbey]

Sept 20, 2014 16:49:30 GMT -5 synergy said:

I probably ate more peaches, apricot and plums this year than any other year because I would buy specifically thinking I was getting both the food and seed for my own orchard

I definitely did this in the last year. I've got a row of some 20 plum pits planted out. The goal is to transplant any that wake up in the spring to a patch where I can watch them long enough to see if any decent fruit turn up.

[templeton]

I've just harvested all my apricots, and some wild ones, and saved the pits. How do I store, and when/how do I propagate them? A few years ago I kept them in damp sand in a ziplok in the fridge, but lots of them sprouted while I wasn't looking. Germination in the field is very rare here - it's generally too dry, I think.
T

[darrenabbey]

Jan 4, 2015 23:12:01 GMT -5 templeton said:

I've just harvested all my apricots, and some wild ones, and saved the pits. How do I store, and when/how do I propagate them? A few years ago I kept them in damp sand in a ziplok in the fridge, but lots of them sprouted while I wasn't looking. Germination in the field is very rare here - it's generally too dry, I think.

The seeds need moisture and cold treatment to sprout, so you can store them dry at room temperature. If you don't get enough cold during the winter (as I vaguely recall from another thread), you won't get wild seedlings. You've already figured out how to get them to sprout.

I have a decently cold winter (Minnesota, USA). I stored my seeds dry in the kitchen (with identifying numbers written in sharpie), then planted them out before the ground froze.

[templeton]

Thanks Darrenabbey. Too easy - do nothing special - them's the sort of special instructions I like
T

[darrenabbey]

There is probably a cold protocol for long-term storage, but it isn't something I've had to worry about. Come spring I'll know if my method resulted in any plants... but I really can't imagine storing such a well protected seed the way I did wouldn't work.