North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Matt Demmon" <mdemmon@gmail.com>]

This is my second year growing apricots from seed, and I thought I'd
see if anyone had any thoughts. I'm in zone 5, so it seems like they
might not do that well outside over the winter, and I don't see many
or any apricot seedlings around the trees I collect from. Last year I
collected them as soon as the apricots started dropping in july, and
stratified them in the fridge right away. The problem was that they
sprouted in the fridge in about november, which was way too early,
since I don't have a greenhouse to put them in. I got them into pots
in a warm spot about mid-march, and they did all right, but by that
time they had 3-4 inch long roots with much branching and some had
died or were damaged a lot in transplanting. So I'd like to delay
germination, and am wondering if anyone has experience with the proper
sequence of storage. My thought has been to put them in plastic bag to
keep them from drying out totally, and just keep it at room
temperature until midwinter, and then put them in the fridge to
stratify them. I also thought about just freezing them and then
putting them in the fridge later to germinate. Any thoughts?

matt, zone 5 michigan

--
-matt
aim: farmerdemmon
www.flickr.com/photos/farmerdemmon