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["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

I have about 10 lbs of chestnuts stratified in my fridge &they are 
getting a mold that has lots of red color in it.  I even washed them 
off once &put them back in bags with peat but the mold which is 
extremely sticky to the touch is coming back again.  Does anyone know 
if I can freeze these &get similar germination rates of +90%?  In the 
five or so years I've been collecting nuts from my trees I've never 
seen mold on the nuts before.  Or maybe mold wouldn't be an issue...

Sometimes I have nuts, chestnuts or hazels, that I want to plant or have planted shallow enough in pots that I can watch them, or if I have some in pots that I dump out from time to time to see if any have germinated.  The ones that get mold on the outside usually are shot inside.  You have enough that you can cut into a few to see what's happening.  Generally it seems to me that the mold attacks nuts that are already dead, though I suppose it could go the other way.  Did you by any chance either have a very rainy fall, or did you have a sharp freeze when the nuts were still falling?    Donna