Ground Cherry seed saving: has anybody tried dehydrating the whole fruit?

Wild ground cherries grow well around here along the roadsides and (in one case) in my orchard area. But last winter just to be sure I ordered some Aunt Molly's seed and got a packet with just 10 of those tiny tiny seeds in it. What with me being an infamous seedling murderer, I wound up with one healthy plant in a big pot that is fruiting well.

I know that ground cherries reseed themselves well from dropped fruit, but I want to save some seed (from the wild and from the Aunt Molly's) for sharing and planting in new locations. I've already got about 100 seeds that I did in the traditional tomato way, fermenting the pulp and then drying out the seed. I found this to be ridiculously labor-intensive when dealing with those miniscule ground cherry seeds, which probably explains why the packet I bought only had 10 seeds in it.

My notion is that if I just pop some whole fruit in the dehydrator, they will dry up like little raisins that I can probably just plant directly (much easier to deal with than those fly-speck seeds). Does anybody have any experience with doing this? Is there any problem with spoilage or subsequent germination?

I am also curious whether they will dry best after being removed from their husks or left in the husk, but that I can determine by experiment a lot more quickly.

Anybody got any experience drying ground cherries as a seed source?

Yep I did that one year, they take awhile unless you puncture the skins. I took the husk off, not sure it matters but then it's in essence a raisin.
Delicious, and the seeds should be fine as long as you don't overheat them.
Honestly though just take a fresh ground cherry, smush it up in some water, swirl and sift the pulp off, wash 3 x and dry the seeds until no moisture is left. They don't have the tomato "coating" that requires fermentation. Plant one tiny seed at a time though, sometime I get a whole cherry germinate and it's hard to sort the seedlings apart without damaging them.
Also for permiculture, just smush a few in a slurry and spray them around the garden, you'll have plenty just show up once the soil warms up enough.

Thanks! Dealing with those tiny seeds just about drove me nuts! I figure I can halve or quarter the "raisins" to get more planting units and limit my thinning problem.

Even less complicate then that put some fruit at the end of season in the ground where you want them.then the next year just move the dirt a bit like mix it then water and wait they will spout after thin out or move them to other place there you have it me they grow every year alone in my yard same with cherry tomatoes

I wanted to take some of the self-seeding ones I had at our old place so, before we moved, I just smeared a chunk of the seeds and pulp over some paper towel then let it dry. Once dry, it was folded and I wrote "groundcherry" and the year on the back before putting it in a bag and adding it to the seed stash.
This year, it was easy to just pop off individual ones with my finger nails and pot them up. Both the ones I planted came up and produced well for me.

I have been growing them for four years here on the Oregon Coast zone 9b. I have about a 75% winter survival rate but it hardly matters. They self seed like crazy. You got me curious now. I have some frozen, lots frozen, great in smoothies and ground cherry sherbet, OMG. Anyway I am going to plant some by just poppin some frozen berries in some soil and see what happens. I bet they sprout.