21
SEED TESTING INTERNATIONAL APRIL 2026
 ASSOCIATION NEWS 
Dr Stan Matthews Honoured at Germination and 
Vigour Workshop in Angers
Didier Demilly
Chair of ISTA Proficiency Test Committee
DR STAN MATTHEWS LEFT THE 
VIGOUR COMMITTEE AND CEASED HIS 
ACTIVITIES AT ISTA in 2025. However, he was 
present at the Germination and Vigour workshop 
in Angers (France) in December last year. I was 
asked by the ISTA Executive Committee and 
the Secretariat to present Dr Matthews with a 
certificate of appreciation, in recognition of his 
significant work as a member of the ISTA Vigour 
Committee and the ISTA Seed Science Advisory 
Group. This gave me the opportunity to highlight 
Stan’s involvement in ISTA and to share a few 
anecdotes.
In 1967, at the end of his PhD supervised by 
Dr Bob Whitbread and greatly influenced by 
Professor John Harper, Dr Matthews published 
his first scientific article in the ISTA journal 
Proceedings of the International Seed Testing 
Association. The article is entitled ‘The detection 
of seed samples of wrinkled seeded peas of 
potentially low planting value’. With this work, 
he demonstrated that electrical conductivity is a 
possible routine test for evaluating seed vigour. 
The article was co-authored by Dr Bradnock, 
who would become the Chair of the Vigour 
Committee a few years later. Stan’s connection 
with ISTA dates back 58 years.
In 1977, Stan was working in Stirling (Scotland) 
and attended his first ISTA Congress in Madrid 
with his wife Alison Powell. The minutes of the 
Vigour Committee meeting report included his 
intervention on improving the vigour of barley 
seeds treated with organomercurials. Forty-six 
years ago, Stan and Alison moved to Aberdeen to 
work at Aberdeen University. Stan’s input to ISTA 
continued. In 1981, for example, he and Alison 
co-wrote the section on electrical conductivity 
testing in the first ISTA Handbook of Vigour Test 
Methods.
He was a member of the working group on 
harmonising vigour tests with the Association of 
Official Seed Analysts (AOSA) in 1995. In 2004 he 
became a member of the ISTA Vigour Committee 
until 2025. Dr Stan Matthews is author or co-
author of 70 scientific articles, 30 of which are 
co-publications with Alison. He focused on 
determining seed vigour, first using electrical 
conductivity, then controlled deterioration, and 
more recently with the radicle emergence test.
Stan was a lecturer at several ISTA workshops, 
the last being the ISTA/APSA (Asia and Pacific 
Seed Association) Vigour workshop in Bangkok 
in September 2023. He was also a member of 
the Seed Science Advisory Group for 10 years. 
Stan visited Angers six times, including in 2001 
for the ISTA Congress when vigour testing was 
introduced into the International Rules for Seed 
Testing (ISTA Rules).
I thank Marie Hélène Wagner, Sylvie Ducournau, 
Nadine Ettel and Alison Powell for helping me to 
trace Dr Stan Matthews’ career and to remember 
anecdotes.
We thank Stan hugely for all the work he has done 
at ISTA. 
Stan Matthews (with Alison Powell at his side) presented with a certificate of appreciation from ISTA 
by Didier Demilly at the ISTA Germination and Vigour workshop in Angers, France

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