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**carolyn137** · January 22, 2013

There are three sources for OP tomato seed. A vendor can grow all that they list, the vendor can subcontract out for seed production, and last, a vendor can buy off the shelf in bulk, and some vendors do all of the above in one combo or another.

With OP tomato seed I don't know of one site, regardless of how "reputable" it might be called, that hasn't had some wrong seeds, a stray seed, some crossed seeds, etc.

And that's b'c they grow too many plants to even think about bagging blossoms or geographic isolation, which is not as good as bagging blossoms. Same with some sub contrators and samewith bulk seed bought commercially.

In previous seed offers here and starting back in the AOL Tomato Forum in the early 80's and from my SSE listings which at one time were in the hundreds, I can have maybe 2000 seeds of a variety, I produced and processed all my seed back then, and can go through maybe 1000 before an off type appears.

I know what my average crossing rate is, about 5% which means of seeds saved from 100 varieties about 5 will be crossed. Crossing rates muchhigher than mine are often the norm, but this business of saving seed and crossing has been dicussed here in MAY threads for MANY years, soplease, I'm using this illustration to make a point.

And in all the years I offered seeds here and there, but especially with my SSE listings going back to when I listed so many, I know of only about 10 that had crossed seed.

So I don't know what a "reputable" source means, considering the seed sources that vendors have availble to them and errors that can occur. Are some sites better than others in that regard? Yes, I know so based on the fact that at GW for many years I did a wrong varieties thread.

I stopped doing it b'c many with seed problems refused to contact the vendor, which is the right way to go, so I said I would, which was a huge mistake b/c there were two vendors that said it wasn't uncommon for someone to name a seed source, but actually named the wrong one, so seed site owners prefer that you contact them directly to see if their computer records match the claims made against them.

I hope that helps, somewhat.

Carolyn

January 22, 2013	#12
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	There are three sources for OP tomato seed. A vendor can grow all that they list, the vendor can subcontract out for seed production, and last, a vendor can buy off the shelf in bulk, and some vendors do all of the above in one combo or another. With OP tomato seed I don't know of one site, regardless of how "reputable" it might be called, that hasn't had some wrong seeds, a stray seed, some crossed seeds, etc. And that's b'c they grow too many plants to even think about bagging blossoms or geographic isolation, which is not as good as bagging blossoms. Same with some sub contrators and samewith bulk seed bought commercially. In previous seed offers here and starting back in the AOL Tomato Forum in the early 80's and from my SSE listings which at one time were in the hundreds, I can have maybe 2000 seeds of a variety, I produced and processed all my seed back then, and can go through maybe 1000 before an off type appears. I know what my average crossing rate is, about 5% which means of seeds saved from 100 varieties about 5 will be crossed. Crossing rates muchhigher than mine are often the norm, but this business of saving seed and crossing has been dicussed here in MAY threads for MANY years, soplease, I'm using this illustration to make a point. And in all the years I offered seeds here and there, but especially with my SSE listings going back to when I listed so many, I know of only about 10 that had crossed seed. So I don't know what a "reputable" source means, considering the seed sources that vendors have availble to them and errors that can occur. Are some sites better than others in that regard? Yes, I know so based on the fact that at GW for many years I did a wrong varieties thread. I stopped doing it b'c many with seed problems refused to contact the vendor, which is the right way to go, so I said I would, which was a huge mistake b/c there were two vendors that said it wasn't uncommon for someone to name a seed source, but actually named the wrong one, so seed site owners prefer that you contact them directly to see if their computer records match the claims made against them. I hope that helps, somewhat. Carolyn __________________ Carolyn