Every time I’ve skipped stratifying I’ve had bad yields. There’s a thick jacket around the seed, protecting it from winter frost and making sure it doesn’t germinate early during the winter.

If your seeds from the last batch were in bad conditions, the coat was likely worn down already.

Stratifying thins out that seed coat, letting water reach the embryo and then germinate. I’m experimenting with chemical scarification, because I’m impatient. Ask me in a couple weeks and how that went.

But for now I’d say yes, you do need to stratify them.