Re: [nafex] Help in Sprouting Sweet Cherry Pits

["Doreen Howard" <doreenh@ticon.net>]

Nice to know that the squirrels will do the job. <grin> I read Nikolai's
post with interest, because I have a bag full of cherry pits that I was
thinking of planting.  I live in Zone 4b where sweet cherries are marginal,
and it would be neat to get an adapted tree that bore.  Seriously, I think
I'll put them in the blender or get out my husband's wood file.

Next question on sprouting these cherry pits:  how long does it take, how
deep should you plant??
Doreen Howard,
Zone 4b, deep in the heart of squirrel country.

-----Original Message-----
From: victoria l. caron <vicaron@gis.net>
To: nafex@egroups.com <nafex@egroups.com>
Date: Friday, July 14, 2000 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: [nafex] Help in Sprouting Sweet Cherry Pits


>Ten ways to scarify cherry pits:
>
>  1- line your walkway with them.
>  2- put 50 at a time in a rock tumbler for 5 hours.
>  3- put 100 at a time in a blender with water.
>  4- fill 8 to a shot shell and set a trash can under the target.
>  5- feed to the chickens and recover later.
>  6- put them all in the clothes dryer overnight on no heat setting.
>  7- let your teenager spin out his tires on them.
>  8- rent a landscape roller and run over them in the garage.
>  9- use them for aquarium gravel and don't clean your tank for a month.
>10- borrow some of Doreen's squirrels and put them to work.
>
>Have a nice weekend.............Vic
>
>Nikolai wrote:
>
>> I'm getting 20 lbs of sweet cherry pits from a processor in Ontario in a
few
>> weeks.  These seeds are removed mechanically by a mechanical "pitter",
and
>> not brined or treated in any way, so they should be good.  I'll be
planting
>> these pits like corn at very, very close spacing, say 100 or more seeds
to a
>> square foot, ie about one inch apart.
>>
>> My objective is to get a sweet cherry seedling that survives zone 3 and
>> produces.  I assume at best one in four pits will sprout, and of those,
>> perhaps one in a thousand of the sprouted plants will survive above the
snow
>> in a zone 3 winter.  I hope to get a very small number of hardy trees
down
>> the line, and just maybe, a sweet cherry of reasonable quality that is
hardy
>> in zone 3.
>>
>> My question to NAFEXERs is about the successful sprouting of sweet cherry
>> pits, which I understand can be very difficult at times.  Any methods
that
>> have worked well?  Most methods seem to revolve around cracking the pit
and
>> planting in the fall.  However, cracking thousands of pits with a pair of
>> pliars doesn't appeal much to me...Does anyone have a method that works
well
>> for getting sweet cherry pits to sprout in reasonable numbers?
>> Bernie Nikolai
>> Edmonton, Alberta
>>
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