So, question is: what % of seeds that you have bought have turned out to be the wrong variety?

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Anthony, I'll answer generically since I personally do not buy tomato seeds.

For several years each year I did a wrong varieties thread here at GW. And there was lots of feedback.

I mean seeds purchased commercially, not tradeed seed, b'c there's a much higher rate of wrong varieties with traded seed as I think most folks know.

The data submitted was very interesting and it's very clear that seed trueness varies widely from different sources and so can seed viability.

I have no idea which suppliers you used for your seed so I really cannot comment further, but I think it's reasonable for me to say that most folks buy their seed from a limited number of places where there's been a good track record, blurbs are accurate and not plumped up, seeds have high viability and service is very good and seed prices are reasonable, not plumped up.

That being said, there's no place that offers OP seed that has a perfect record just b/c of the way OP seed is produced.

Some sources produce ALL of their own seed, some buy seed off the shelf from wholesalers, some subcontract out for seed production and most use a combo of all of these different sources for their seed.

Some places do seed viability tests and some don't, and of course that's an important factor as well. How a place stores seed also is important since a viability test done this year that's great doesn't mean that much if the seeds are stored at ambient room temp in glass jars and sold for the nest five years with no viability tests in subsequent years.

A complex situation indeed.

Carolyn

I get most of my seeds from Johnny's. Flowers and vegetables. I probably have bought 150 packs of seeds from Johnny's over the years and NEVER had a germination or a wrong variety problem. That amazes me!

I bought maybe 15 to 20 packs of Burpee seeds and never a problem. I did have a problem ordering plants one time though.

I bought maybe 25 packs from Parks and never a problem. Again, I did have a problem with a plant order once though.

I bought maybe 10 to 15 packs from Totally Tomatoes and had zero germination on a pepper variety and this was maybe 10 years ago.

I bought 50 to 75 packs from Tomato Growers Supply Company and got a wrong variety about 5 years ago and very poor germination on another tomato variety this year.

Despite a very few mixups I would deal again with any of the companies mentioned above as they all will correct any problems and have good customer service.

As a side note, I am an organic gardener and sometimes order from Gaerdens Alive. I was extremely disappointed that my last order over the phone took forever because I had to order through a robot. Not a single option to ever speak with a human. It was slow and tedious. Yes it probably is the future. You will either get a live person in Peking or Calcutta or a robot almost everywhere going forward and man I don't like that one bit...:)

Thanks for the responses...agreed re. complexity Carolyn, I certainly do not expect perfection, just hoping for the best. Annoyed about poorly performing black krims, but maybe the plants will surprise me (last year had beautiful huge tomatoes from my BK plants), and maybe the 1 that is not BK will turn out to be something delicious.

Thinking about this also makes me realize that for the varieties that I have that don't seem to be doing everything they should be doing, it might make sense to order from another seed supplier, just to be sure that the seeds are not from lesser stock. I knew that I should have tried some of my old BK seeds this year, just for comparison purposes, but got too lazy and did not bother.

Just as a point of reference (and note that I've complained about this subject often on this forum) we tend to be skewed in our memories of seed mixups... because we have a tendency to remember the infrequent wrongs much more than the numerous rights in this field where random mixups are inevitable.

How many of us long for a time when every seed will be automatically scanned for DNA match patterns and unmatched seeds would be culled before leaving the seed companies. I certainly don't. Then we wouldn't have a thread such as this to discuss the subject. Gardening would tend to get boring.. Not that my wife isn't already complaining about sitting out in the lawn chairs in the evenings-- watching the tomatoes ripen.

Carolyn Quote:
"The data submitted was very interesting and it's very clear that seed trueness varies widely from different sources and so can seed viability."

I've seen this information here before and I think it would be disappointing to put time/money into growing only to find that it's not what you thought you purchased. For the past few years I've bought only plants but I do plan on buying seeds for next year. I've been checking resources and have zeroed in on a couple of companies that I feel I can put my trust in.

anthony_toronto Quote:
"I knew that I should have tried some of my old BK seeds this year."

That's an excellent point Anthony, if you get a great tomato save some of it seeds for next growing season.