The fruit needs to ripen on the vine. When it is ripe, it will be dark purple - nearly black and wrinkled and soft.

P.incarnata does not turn purple.Your thinking of P.edulis.P.incarnata stay green or turn yellow.Just open the fruit and see if the seed are mature,dark brown or black.

My incarnata fruit remains a pale greenish color but when ripe will soften and the skin will start to wrinkle. If the fruit is still firm and the seeds are light they won't be viable. You can try putting an unripe fruit in a paper bag with a banana or apple. If the passion fruit was mature enough when picked the gas (ethylene I think) released from the other fruit will ripen it. Like Emmet said ripe seeds will be dark.

I concur with Emmett and Karyn above. Even if you have opened the fruit, it is amazing how much maturation can happen if you simply leave the seeds in the juicy arils in a semi-humid environment for a little while. We discovered this by accident not too long ago....

Hi Eric,

I was wondering if you could elaborate on what you saw.

I thought I had always heard that seeds don't ripen after a fruit is picked, so any information you have suggesting otherwise would be helpful.

As I mentioned in an email, I'm about to be sent a fruit that is likely ripe, but possibly slightly early. If I let it sit for a few weeks will the seeds ripen if they are not quite there?

As Karyn suggested, an apple goes a long way toward ripening, but if that is not an option... (and I am in no way a scientist):

Crystal and I found an immature fruit in the wild - the only one of a specific species that we saw, and it was unfortunately very unripe. We pulled it off and opened it, finding all green seeds, but they were full sized, (I think that may be the important factor). It was at the very least, 2-3 weeks shy of ripe. We pushed the fruit skin back around the pulp, closing it off as best we could, and left it sitting in a very warm humid environment for about a week. Shockingly, when we opened it back up again, the seeds had all turned very dark brown, and we have indeed had some germinate.

However, with all that being said, when I have a situation when the fruit ripening without attachment is a bridge too far, I prefer peduncle grafting, and have had wonderful success with it.

Good luck!
Eric

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Here is a link that might be useful: PSI