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I bought a yellow dragon fruit (Pitaya) and extracted the seeds. After soaking the seeds in water in preparation for sowing, I noticed that a thick clear sac (called mucilage) swelled around the seeds.

There is a lot of literature around mucilage of tomato seeds. The general consensus is this mucilage prevents the seed from germinating while inside the fruit/vegetable. So one must soak the tomato seeds in water to dissolve the mucilage before sowing in soil.

All the literature on dragon fruit is littered with technical jargon that will make my head explode, so I thought I’d make some analogy with tomato seeds. The opposite effect seemed to have occur with dragon fruit seeds. The mucilage is now stronger than ever. I have difficulty removing it as it is extremely slippery and gooey when ruptured. What are your tips to remove this?

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JoJo
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  • I've never grown Dragon fruit seeds, it with bitter melon, you rub the hydrated seeds up against your strainer until the coating gets busted. Then it will rinse off pretty easily. – Wayfaring Stranger Jul 25 '20 at 14:35
  • It's probably evolved to break down while going through the digestive tract of a fruit-eating animal. So, maybe experiment with some acids? Try it with lemon juice, strong cleaning vinegar, etc. Just a few seeds at a time for each experiment. Also, if you found some literature that seemed like it would be useful if you could work through the technical jargon, please provide a link. – csk Jul 28 '20 at 21:47

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