Papaya from seed (growing, south, plants, fruit)

[alsidw]

I am in South Florida and read growing papaya from seed is easy, except not for me. I have removed seeds twice from store bought fruit, dried them a few days and planted them about 1 inch deep and nothing has sprouted from perhaps 100 seeds. What am I doing wrong.

[EugeneOnegin]

They probably aren't germinating because you're drying the seeds. Tropical fruit seeds generally have to be planted fresh and often won't sprout after being dried.

Just scoop out some seeds, remove the arils, wash them, and plop them in some moist potting mix. They take a fairly long time to germinate, usually a couple weeks to a month. After they germinate don't over water them because they really don't like wet feet.

Keep in mind the seedlings can be male, female, or even bisexual. Male plants don't produce fruit but they're needed for pollination. One male can pollinate quite a few females.

I would recommend using seeds from the smaller yellow ones, here they're usually labeled as strawberry papaya. They have really good flavor.