You may want to search the forums, if you have not already. I think I remember someone saying that some Cedrus are frost-germinators (sp?) and that they start to germinate while on melting snow (there may have even been a pic included in the post). I would guess you could put them back in the fridge and keep an eye on them to hold them until spring.

Hopefully, Resin will weigh in on this.
Mike

if the radicles are extending they have already germinated and there is not much you can do now.

the rest will continue to sprout in short order.

can you pot them up and start them inside for a month or two? then you could move them outside, and protect them during cold weather, until spring. they germinate fast...

arguably, raising temp may be better than lowering it for rest of seeds becuase minimal cold requirement could be delayed or reversed.

Well, if you have room, grow em. That's all I can see. I don't know what the effects of reversing would do. It seems logical to a large degree though because seeds that sprout a year later than their peers go through an entire "reversing" period again. I just don't know.

Dax

Keeping them just above freezing, about 1°C, will slow down further growth a lot without harming them. But don't let them freeze, and don't let them dry out.

Resin

If they are frost germinators and germinate in melting snow, would another burst of cold perhaps with some snow be possible? And if that did happen would all the germinated seed die?
I'm just throwing out some questions here, but I though they might be able to take a bit of freezing...

Thanks,
Nate

Depends on how cold they got. A degree or so below zero might not hurt, but any more than that might well damage them. Germinating seed under snowpack in the wild is insulated from severe cold, I'd doubt the soil ever freezes beneath deep snow in Turkey/Lebanon/etc.; by the time the snowpack melts in spring, night frosts are finished.

I'd suspect a lot of seed in the wild does get killed by germinating in times and places where the conditions are not ideal. After all, population maintenance only requires one seed per tree (out of the millions produced!) to reach reproductive maturity.

Resin

Well put.
Thank you Resin.

Nate