The determination of the proper harvest interval of the dehiscent sesame cultivars is one of the basic factors for the economic success of the crop. In Brazil, the available informations on this subject need to be studied in more detail, including those related to the quality of the seeds for planting purposes. An experiment was thus conducted with the dehiscent cultivar IAC-Ouro?, for two successive crop years (87/88 and 88/89), and harvests were made at five days intervals, from 85 to 120 days after emergence. In each harvest date, evaluations were made for moisture content of fruits and seeds at harvest, dry weight of 1,000 seeds, yield per plant and emergence in greenhouse soon after harvest and drying, and after eight months of storage at ambient conditions. The optimum and practical harvest dates, for highest yields and least losses by shattering, were those between 90 and 95 days after emergence in the 87/88 crop year and between 100 and 105 days in 88/89. The seeds harvested at these intervals presented very high moisture contents at harvest (42,7% to 55,4% wet basis); after suitable drying, they exhibited from good to excellent emergence indices soon after drying and after eight months of storage.