sounds vaguely familiar but its been a few years since I've grown it.

Thanks, vaguely familiar makes me feel vaguely better, which is a whole lot better than before. They are really miniature odd-looking that I was thinking I got the wrong seed!

PC

I have not grown RT but recently had a similar problem with Hahms Gelbe topftomate. ( Coincidently the both have German name )
Anyway, at the third attempt finally got just one sprout that is growing weakly.

I can only suspect BAD seeds.

Seysonn

Thanks Seysonn, that's what I thought when it took 10 days and I wrote it off, and I figured I couldn't complain since it was from a swap. But they did finally and now and the leaves look like miniature deep green spades. The sprout is very diminutive but healthy. I think it might be some oddball. One thing, I heat sterilized all my seeds but had 100% of all varieties (90% of the seeds) germinate and they're all normal sizes besides Rt. One really bad seeds variety I got was Aunt Ruby's German Green (1/3 germinated), don't know if that's German ;-), The one seed that popped was weak but of fairly normal size, though you can tell not great. Back to Rt, I searched around and didn't find anyone else commenting about it being so small but even Sara's Galapagos is a larger sprout!

I have grown Reisentraube for three years and it germinates in 3-4 days. I suspect you have a batch of poor seeds.

Didn't note rate of growth but do know that some of my varieties do start out smaller though eventually catch up to the others and are all about the same size when they are planted out.

It is starting to sound like a combination of the abov including old/bad seeds, because most else germinated here in 3-4 days, but not Riesentraube. The size remains a mystery but I have nothing to lose by keeping it going, until it comes time to make selections for transplant ... more candidates than slots.

Thanks MNWS!

I've grown Riesentraube for at least two decades, originial source for me from Curtis Choplin who got it from the German Seed Bank. But known to be grown in Philadelphia in the mid 1800's and also grown in several other European countries. I think it was in Hungary that it was called Goat's T#T for the small nipple at the blossom end of the fruits.

And no, I've never had a problem with seed germination from the ones I got from Curtis or the ones I saved seed from in susequent growouts, primarily for my then many hundreds of varieties listed in the SSE Yearbooks, And it's also one I featured in my tomato book.

I'm sure there are pictures at Tania's website and know that each blossom stalk can have 200-300 blossoms but only about 40-50 of them set fruits.

Almost forgot. One person I know made wine from them and sent me a few small bottles and it tasted like a wonderful dry sherry with color to match,

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn, interesting histories always make it more fun to grow a variety, and I'll be sure to watch for both billie-goats and trolls that try to nibble on my baby goat Riesentraubes ;-)

I see now that some (like yourself) with more dependable seed seem to have no issues, but on the other hand, I'm not the first to to have trouble specifically with this variety. For example, take a look at the comment in this link selling Riesentraube seeds (not my source unless by coincidence, unfortunately mine are likely not traceable to origin): "The germination time of the seeds tends to be a bit longer than that of other varieties." Opinions on seed sources aside, I found the same comment in other places since my OP.

Perhaps there is something different about how it hibernates or goes into dormancy or more to the point the way it wakes up. I'd better admit, that my seed starting conditions haven't been as controlled as I should, but really it was my only variety of nearly 25 that gave any indication of difficulty. I wonder if you noticed whether the emergent seedling was extra fine leafed (leaved sp?)... That is something I haven't seen addressed anywhere, if in fact there is anything to address, seems like most people don't pay too much attention to that aspect as long as they eventually get healthy plants. I'm curious for curiosity sake at this point, but the knee jerk reaction originally was I had received something wild.

You mentioned in your book that not all plants express the heavily bunching trait. Is that still true or I wonder if growers have managed to select it out by now.

Thanks (as always) for you kind input!

PC