jamie:

40 degrees is great. Stick them in there and you will be fine. That assumes they are at least reasonably packed. But at 40F there shouldn't really be much issue.

Heeled in outside they will be at a higher temperature most of the time. I'd go with the lower temperature any time.

Jamie, for that long a period I would take them out of your cold storage say once a week and give them a soak in a tub, and keep the roots well-wrapped in wet newspaper or the like while in storage. I have stored bare roots in my cool garage for several weeks and had many die; the roots looked all dried out when I unwrapped them to plant. Every vendor wraps trees differently, some will help keep the roots moist a lot more than others.

Scott

I often just put mine in the shade for 3 weeks covering with a tarp. However, my boxes are crammed tight with trees and there is never any danger of them drying out.

In all the years I've been running my nursery I've never had trees die because I waited too long to plant them and I'm very busy in Spring. The problem with opening up the box is that it is a lot of work to put everything back as it was if the box is crammed full.

Thanks for the replies, looks like the trees will be spending some time in the root cellar. j

May I add a question to this thread? How late is too late to plant bare root fruit trees? I have a large number of trees to plant this spring and I wonder how late is too late. Thanks, Ted

I've had some success and no failures that I remember planting in late April and early May. That's pretty late here, 80s for highs, hot, dry, and windy. I believe I painted most of those trees white at planting.

They also do OK even with some buds pushing. Earlier planting of fully dormant stock is preferred.

In PA you tend to lose a years growth if you plant much past mid-april.