bigdog

I still haven't had much luck with nonsterile soil, so I only use sterile media now. The scarification studies involved potting up in sterile soil, and the other one was sowing unscarified seeds in nonsterile soil. I'm sure that scarifying seeds and placing them in nonsterile soil would be pointless.

Farmers are working with thousands of corn seeds, or whatever other types of seeds, and more often than not are sowing them directly into the soil. Most of those seeds have 90%+ germination rates. Musa seeds, depending on the species, have a much lower germination success rate. So, using sterile soil gives you the best chance at keeping your few sprouts alive, and reduce the chances of damping off or other diseases (or bugs, bacteria, etc.) that attack seedlings.