What's the best way to plant starfruit seeds?

[Weboh]

I have some starfruit seeds I want to plant. What's the best way to do that? Plant a whole fruit? I know the fruit provides nutrients to the seeds. What soil should I use to start the seeds? Standard Florida sand? Mix with potting soil? How often should I water them, and how long until they germinate?

Thanks.

[fruitlovers]

I have some starfruit seeds I want to plant. What's the best way to do that? Plant a whole fruit? I know the fruit provides nutrients to the seeds.

NO, you want to remove the seeds out of the fruit.

 What soil should I use to start the seeds? Standard Florida sand? Mix with potting soil?

Suggest using a sterile potting soil.

 How often should I water them, and how long until they germinate?

Keep the soil moist till they germinate. Germination time depens on temperatures and light, but usually 2-4 weeks.

[Finca La Isla]

Star fruit is one of the few seeds that I plant that I feel the seeds need to be very clean.  In my experience if these seeds have pulp on them the germinated seed will succumb to damping off.
Peter

[Peru918]

I've had pretty really good success in getting the seeds to germinate, not much luck getting them past a ~4 inches tall, so I can least help you with the first part.  Also, I've found that if you don't want to germinate all your fresh seeds at once, you can refrigerate the CLEANED and DRIED seeds in closed Ziploc bag; I kept a set of seeds in there for ~1 month, took them out, gave the the paper towel a spritz of water, put it on top the fridge, and they all germinated.

1) Definitely remove the seeds from the fruit.  They'll have a gelatinous coating that won't wash off with water; I just use a dry paper towel to rub off the gel.  If you try to grow them with the coating, they tend to get moldy fast.
2) Wet a single paper towel, wring out the excess water, put the seeds on top, and put the whole thing a Ziploc bag.
3) Put the bag in a warm area out of direct sunlight (I put it on top of the refrigerator) and in 1-2 weeks you'll see some roots and sprouting.  Make sure to check the bag every few days as I've found that sometimes you'll get some mold, if that happens then wipe off any seeds that still seem viable, change out the paper towel, and possibly change bags.
4) Once the sprouts have reached about 1-2 inches I removed them and put them in a seedling starter tray with drainage holes; I've used regular Miracle-Gro potting soil and pure vermiculite with similar results.
5) I kept mine indoors on my kitchen counter top next to my small Miracle-Gro hydroponic setup that has a small automatic on/off grow light which they seemed to love and about half of each crop would reach ~4-5 inches with lots of leaves.

After that, you'd have to ask someone else because mine would always die following the same pattern:  1) Mild leaf drooping with some leaf drop 2) Whole branches falling off 3) Remaining leaves/branches and main "trunk"/stem wilts and dies.  After the 1st attempt I thought maybe they didn't have enough room in the grow cell so with the 2nd attempt I transferred the 3 strongest seedlings into pint-sized non-draining vermiculite filled pots, but the same thing happened, thought possibly due over watering/standing water at the bottom of the pot.  During another attempt, I thought they weren't getting enough water so I put some seedlings in my small Miracle-Gro hydroponic setup and quickly found out they do not like their roots sitting wet soil (the same is true for potted adult trees which I found out the hard way).  I've currently got another batch germinating so we'll see how this attempt goes.