North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[nottke1 <nottke1@earthlink.net>]

Several years ago I separated pawpaw seed "floaters" from "sinkers".  Curious 
as to what a floater was like inside, I cut several open and found that each 
had a cavity between the hull and seed on one side of the seed.  I then cut 
open several sinkers and found they had no such cavity.
I did not do a germination test.
Jim 
z7 NC

-----Original Message-----
>From: abb7@Lehigh.EDU
>Sent: Apr 1, 2009 12:03 AM
>To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>Subject: [NAFEX] minor paw paw seed experiment
>
>Hello,
>
>Typical advice for germinating acorns and nuts includes the tip to put  
>them in a bucket of water, and throw away those that float, because  
>they are inviable.  I wanted to see if this same test was useful for  
>paw paw seeds.
>
>Last fall I saved ~50 paw paw seeds.  I cleaned them and put them in a  
>moist paper towel in the fridge as soon as I ate them.  Later I put  
>them all through the float test, almost half of them were floaters,  
>but saved them anyway, in a separate bag.
>
>In late January, I took 5 floaters and 5 sinkers, put them in ziploc  
>bags with a wet paper towel.  In 1 to 2 months, all 10 seeds  
>germinated.  The first floater germinated a day or two after the first  
>sinker, the last of each also germinated within a couple days of one  
>another.
>
>Anyhow, maybe the paw paw gurus already knew this, but I thought I'd  
>share with the list: don't throw away floating paw paw seeds!
>
>Alex


Jim Nottke
Pfafftown, NC