If dry indehiscent fruits are not easily opened, it is often better to leave them as they are and store them in this form. This will save processing time and often will preserve their viability and longevity. Additionally, some fleshy fruits contain a stony endocarp, which is very hard, difficult to open, and can contain one to multiple seeds. In this case, separate the endocarps from fleshy fruits using the same process as removing seeds from fleshy fruits, but it is often better to store the endocarps in the seed bank instead of attempting to remove seeds from endocarps.
To determine the number of seeds in the accession:
- Count the total number of fruits in your accession as you would do with pure seeds.
- Open at least 5 fruits and count how many seeds are held in each one. If you can do so without damaging the seeds, you can use them for germination testing or store them together with the rest of the seed accession.
- Calculate the average number of seeds per fruit. Be aware that sometimes this number can vary significantly between fruits.
- Additionally, you might be able to find botanical descriptions of the number of seeds per fruit in plant databases, books on your regional flora, or scientific publications about the species.
- Multiply the average number of seeds per fruit by the total number of fruits, and you’ll get the estimated total number of seeds.
When it comes to germinating these seeds, you can try soaking the fruits or endocarps in water for 24 hours to soften them, as this could make the seed extraction easier. However, if seed extraction is still too time consuming or too difficult and results in seed damage, you can germinate the whole fruit/endocarp as it would probably happen in nature. Just be aware of how many seedlings you are expecting to grow from each fruit!