This work had as its objective to verify the influence of the harvest season and the period of storage of the fruits for physiologic quality of the papaya seeds. The fruits, developed during the winter and summer time, of cv Golden, at the stage two of maturation were harvested and kept at 25°C for 12 days. After extraction and washing of the seeds, the humidity and dry matter levels were determined. The drying was accomplished using an oven-dried with air circulation at 30ºC until they reached 8 to 10% humidity. The seeds germination and vigour (first count of germination test) test were analyzed immediately after extraction of the seeds after fruit rest periods (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 days) and after storage of the seeds for 30 days at 15ºC. The experimental design used was a completely randomized arrangement in 2x7x2 factorial scheme with four replications. The treatments of the factorial consisted of the combination of two fruit harvest times (September and January), eight rest periods of the fruits (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 days) and two periods of evaluation of seed storage (0 and 30 days). There were variations in the humidity and dry matter of the seeds during the rest and harvesting of the fruits. The best vigour of the seeds occurred around 12 days of fruit rest, independent of seed storage. The rest period of the fruit contributed to increase the seeds germination, to the harvested fruits in January the maximum germination of the seeds was evident at the rest period inferior (9 to 12 days) to the fruits harvested in September (13 days). In general terms, the seeds storage increased the seeds germination.
storage; germination; dry matter; vigour; rest period
