Zhang Dawei writes
On 03/10/2009, 08:06:40, in uk.rec.gardening
), Bob Hobden wrote:

So who did they miss testing? Did they test Thomas Etty Esq,
Marshalls and Seeds of Italy? Unwins seems to do badly from what
you say yet I've had no noticeable problems with their veg seed.
With all seed companies I've had the occasional "bad" packet of
seed that won't germinate well, I've never noticed it to be company
specific.

Interesting that the information given earlier lists a number of
spring onions seeds from various people as being problematic: I have
always had problems with germination rates of spring onions seeds, no
matter what I try and what firm's seeds I try. I recall we had a
discussion about this a year or so ago on here as well.

That leads onto the point that, although the survey was merely a
general one, there may be seeds of plants which routinely have
germination problems, and if a firm offers more varieties of those
kinds of seeds than others, their overall results may well be biased
downwards because of this. It may not be feasible, but comparisons
across seed merchants for specific single kinds of seeds might help
give a clearer idea as a supplement to the more general overal
picture given so far.

I haven't read this year's Which survey but I've read previous ones, and
what they seem to do is take an indicator selection of about 10 seed
varieties which are available from all the firms tested. So there
shouldn't be the bias you suggest, because it'll be exactly the same
number of packets of seed from 'problem plants' from each supplier
tested, irrespective of how many different varieties that supplier
sells.
--
Kay