Abstract: A study was conducted at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, to determine water uptake at 6 and 12 hour intervals, and germination characteristics of scarified and non scarified seeds of castor bean accessions in 2008 and 2009. Two hundred seeds were selected from each accession: one hundred seeds were scarified mechanically by caruncle removal using knife (seed lot 1), one hundred seeds were not scarified (seed lot 2). Each seed lot was immersed in 10ml of distilled water contained in 9cm-diameter petridish. Thereafter, seed lots were weighed at every 6 h starting from 0 to 24 h, and at every 12 h up to 108 h. Water uptake in scarified and non scarified seeds was determined by seed mass increase, and expressed as percentage increase in mass of seeds. Germination test of two hundred seeds of each accession was done by planting seeds 2cm deep in moist sandy loam soil contained in plastic containers to determine germination characteristics .Results showed that the weight and percentage weight increase of seeds at 6 and 12 hour intervals were significantly higher in scarified seeds than in non scarified seeds.