North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[road's end farm <organic101@linkny.com>]

On Nov 13, 2005, at 8:29 PM, Richard Moyer wrote:

> Am cleaning pawpaw seed to ship to someone who will germinate them.  About 1/2 sink and about 1/2 float.  Does one 1/2 or the other have a higher germination rate, after cold stratification, or do I assume they are all equally viable?  Anyone with pawpaw seed experience in this area?
>  

Don't know about pawpaw; but with vegetable seed, at least the kinds I've saved, the sinkers are likely to be viable and the floaters almost certainly are not. Viable seed is denser, floaters immature or not pollinated; as floaters don't have the embryo and/or sustaining nutrients for it they weigh less, I think is the explanation. It would make sense if this also applied to fruit (though because something makes sense to me doesn't always mean it's so).

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly