Plums from seed ?

[Drycreek]

Okay, I bought some big red plums at the grocery store (always Russian roulette) and these were really good. What is the process if I save these seeds to get them to sprout and what are the chances that it will actually work ?

And, while y’all are ruminating on the plums, I also bought some dang good peaches from the same store, so…..same questions apply. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jack Terpack]

Like most fruits for commercial sale, these are probably hybrids grafted onto rootstock. Any fruit grown from the seed will revert to the rootstock. My grandson saved several seeds from peaches many years ago. he cleaned them, dried them and kept in the fridge through the winter. We planted about 6 of them and several actually grew. When the trees were 7 years old they produced several fruits that never got bigger than a golf ball and were hard as a rock even when they fell off the trees. The trees suddenly just withered and died when they were about 15 years old but never produced any edible fruit. A friend has two ornamental peach trees in his front yard. They are really pretty ornamentals and produce hundreds of marble sized peaches every year. When they drop, every deer in the area is in his yard all night picking them up. He has tried to grow some to plant on his deer lands but they never have grown.

 

[ng270]

Russian roulette, because of what Jack said.

My wife cans peaches every year. We dump seeds and peels along the edge of the woods at a far corner of the yard. A couple years ago I noticed some young peach trees growing. I've done nothing but watch them since, except to give them a little more sunlight. Last year I saw a blossom or two. This year three of the trees (now 1 1/2" to 2" diameter) set fruit. I picked the four peaches on the first tree this past week. They were on the small side, but otherwise looked and tasted very much like the red haven peaches we buy and can.



Fruit on the other two trees looks less promising. In both cases the fruit is similar sized or a bit smaller. The smallest tree only has one peach this year, and it looks like that peach could end up ripening and being good but it's too early to tell for sure. The other tree has half a dozen peaches on it but they are still very green and hard. If they are going to be good to eat, they're going to be very late.

I don't know the best way to prep the seeds for germination so I'll leave that to someone else to answer.