Question: How do you grow plums from a plum pit?

Linda Downhour, Dunnellon, FL ANSWER: Plums, like many fruit trees, are normally propagated by grafting known varieties onto a vigorous rootstock. You can grow them from seed, but they will not be true to type. Knowing that, you should still try this out, because you might produce a really neat new plum tree. First you want to clean all the fleshy, pulp from around the pit. Do this with water. After it's clean, I always drop the seed into a bucket of water to see if it floats or sinks. If it floats, the seed probably is not viable. If it sinks, it is good and you can continue with the next steps. Most deciduous, fleshy, fruits require some chilling to break the dormancy and penetrate the thick seed coat. After you clean the seed, put it in a zip-lock bag with a mix of slightly moist peat moss or vermiculate and sand. Put the pit in the mixture and place in the refrigerator, about 41 degrees F, or 5 degrees C, for about 6 - 8 weeks. Watch the seed closely through the sides of the unopened bag. If it starts to break dormancy before 6 to 8 weeks, that's ok, but you need to plant it immediately. Depending upon the variety, plums usually need warm days with some chilling. If it is a Japanese variety, it will require less chilling. Lastly, if the plum is not a self-fertilizing variety, you will need to plant some other plums nearby to pollinate it so you can enjoy its fruit. Good luck and let me know how it goes!

f you are going to plant plum, apple, peach, or other temperate fruit seeds in the ground, plant them in the fall so that they have the winter cold weather to vernalize the seed. This means that the seeds have to have a cold treatment to break the natural dormancy of the seed. Stone fruits such as plums and peaches also need time for the outer shell to rot away. The seed is actually inside of the pit. If you are really serious about growing many plums, crack the pit with a hammer and remove the seed. Soak the seeds in water for 2 or 3 days, changing the water twice daily (this removes a chemical germination inhibitor present in the seeds). Put the seeds in moist perlite, peatmoss or potting soil and put the mix in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator for at least 6 weeks. The seeds can then be removed and planted. The same is true for apple seeds, except you do not have to remove the seeds from a pit. For both you can leaves the seeds in the refrigerator and, checking them weekly, remove and plant them when you see roots beginning to come out of the seeds.