Kitchen Garden Forum

Did anyone see the article in The Times today about the differences in seed quality from the various different seed companies? Gardening Which tested various packets of seeds. Even allowing for the fact that seeds naturally vary in quality the results were a bit shocking. The percentage of dead seeds in packets ranged from 1% to 72% in vegetable seeds - with up to 20% producing abnormal seedlings. Flowers were worse - some packets had 99% dead seeds. That's a lot of dead/abnormal seeds to be paying for. The differences between companies seemed striking. T&M and Plants of Distinction came out best. Some well known names should be hanging their heads in shame....

If you combine this with the smaller number of seeds in many packets from the main suppliers, it's not a good combination.


Colin

Maybe someone could shed some light on this area, but surely there is some quality control procedure.
They will be going back to mixing the seed with all sorts of stuff next, just to fill the packet, and there was a law brought in for that, infact i thought it covered some of the above as well.

It was in the DT too

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... eds128.xml

After reading that, i think theres going to be some angry people about.

dont get too wound up......with no details of how the tests were performed, where the seeds were purchased , stored, gernminated and grown on etc its probably a pretty worthless piece of journalism.

this week our local paper has splashed the front page with a story (apparently based on a councilor's report to the parish council meeting) of local residents outraged at a local rubbish tip poluting boreholes, the stench from rotting food waste , noise, mess from seagulls etc ...
this tip for inert builders waste is one field away from my house, apart from meeting the skip lorries in the lane you wouldnt know it was there.. none of us has a borehole... havent seen a seagull since the field next door was ploughed ....
quite frankly i dont beleive a word of anything i read in the papers anymore.

Perhaps we should all return the empty packets of any failed seed to the suppliers and complain about non germination in future, but it will be difficult to prove the seed was dead because so many other factors can cause poor germination - cold temperatures, overwatering, rotting, fungus infected compost etc. Also, not all of us use an entire packet of seed in one year's sowing and save it, so the manufacturers could claim the seed was old and not dead in the first place.

I think if these tests were conducted under "normal" growing conditions this year then they should do them again in a more "normal" year.

Everyone knows that some years are good for one thing and rubbish for another, it happens.

All it means to me is that my policy of mostly using seeds from Seeds of Italy means even if I DO (and it's never happened yet) get a 90% germination failure, the 10% that grows is still more than I get in packets of seeds from elsewhere. I may have stocked up on Kings seeds from the bootfair (10p a packet) but I'll still be sowing SoI in tandem.

I have been getting my seeds from Edwin Tucker for a number of years now & have not been at all disappointed with germination or other aspects of results.

We are members of Gardening Which where the results of the seed research are shown in much more detail. Makes interesting reading and might just influence my orders this year.

Monika - I assume that the germination tests were all done in the same way but were the seeds all purchased direct from the companies and what were the sell-by dates? Also, I think I am right in saying that different companies may well get their seeds from the same source. I assume that this factor was taken into consideration.

To quote from "Which? Gardening":

... We sent three types of flower seeds (delphinium, sweet pea and mimulus) and three types of veg (lettuce, parsnip and spring onion) from each supplier to a seed testing lab. There was huge variation between the suppliers, with some packets containing high percentages of dead, unviable seed. ..."

It does not state whether the seeds were bought in the shop or by mail order but, on the basis of Which?'s usual reliability, I would think that sell-by dates and other factors would have been taken into account.

On the matter of different seed companies supplying seeds from the same wholesaler: two years ago we bought packets of 'Long green trailing marrow' from two different suppliers which both turned out to be bush marrows, obviously from the same source!

I've found Edwin Tucker's seeds to be reliable too, and have also bought flower seeds from Plants of Distinction which echoed the report's findings.
This was discussed on the radio with someone from the RHS and he said his best germination rate was from seeds he'd saved himself! So maybe that's an avenue that could be explored more. It's one of those skills that gardeners used to have but tends not to be practised very often now, which is a shame I think. If you save your own seed you can do a little natural selection yourself and save a bit of money into the bargain.

Hi Haggis,
Rather than rating the seed companies I feel they are berating them. Inevitably things go wrong with seeds in storage the same any other mortal thing.
I think all in all the standard of seeds sold today is very high. Certainly if you save your own seed you run a higher risk of failure than if you buy them from a supplier and what is more the seed that you have saved runs a higher risk of hybridizing with something so what you have saved is not what you expect. There are certain minor seed companies that do not believe in F1 hybrids but say they would prefer to rely on their own hybrids. What that actually means is that they are selling you an F1 Hybrid of their own making. I am sure you will agree that is total nonsense but that is what they are telling you in a roundabout way.
JB.

I'd be interested to see the seedcompanies owning up to how much of their seed is imported. I can't remember where I read or saw a piece on this subject (a few years ago now) but I know a lot of seed comes from Eastern Europe now and countries like Kenya, where the climate is so different from ours the seeds are bound to be a bit shocked when they wake up and find themselves in chilly, damp Little Britain. It's also an awfully long chain between producer and consumer, with many a slip twixt cup and lip and a giant-sized carbon footprint. Not good really.