A method to determine viability or non-viability of seeds is disclosed, wherein individual seeds or seed populations are analysed by a spectrometric method to provide spectral data; and said spectral data are compared with reference spectral data obtained for a reference seed or reference seed population by means of said spectrometric method and calibrated with reference to viability or non-viability of said reference seed or seed population by means of a calibrating method based on pattern recognition. Suitable calibrating methods are based on multivariate or megavariate analysis, neural network systems and regression analysis.
