I wonder if it was the seeds. Where did you get them?

Two separate brands of seeds. The Black Cherry from last year. The Sweet 100 from this year. Yes, maybe something happened to some seeds, but strangely didn't happen to the others. As I said, pretty peculiar.

If you saved them yourself, could it be possible that some were damaged? Sometimes I find that they really stick to the plate when I dry them and have to be scraped off.

Did not save them myself. They were purchased. As I said, two brands of seeds. I guess one question is why you get stunted seedlings in the first place. A separate question is why that happened to some, but not others that, as far as I can tell, were all treated identically. It'll be interesting to see if the stunted ones takes off once they are outside.

Dan, I saved the seeds from my very last Boxcar Willy tomato last year; started them early; all germinated. What I have growing now are 8 large, beautiful plants... in flower, and two stunted, pathetic wanna-bes. I guess it's just the genetics of the individual seeds.

Yes, I suppose that maybe some seeds are just "bad". Except I've done a lot of planting of tomato seeds, and I've never seen anything like this. If they come up, they grow. If they don't come up, I don't worry about them. Maybe I was just extraordinarily unlucky this year?

I have had seedlings that were in cell packs that got dried for a period of time and became stunted and never recovered. They were brassicas though (broccoli). Not sure if it would affect tomatoes the same way. Keeping seedlings on a heat mat for too long after sprouting might have the same effect.

No heat mats, but the temperature did get up to 80F in the trays. No one got dried.

You got me then...did you water them with alcohol? They say it can stunt your growth.

I wouldn't waste alcohol on my plants. There are better places to put it where I'm not worried about stunting growth.

The 'wanna-bes' must have read my post. I had to move the 'kids' back into the garage for the night and found that those two have grown significantly since being put out-of-doors 24/7. They are now tall and lanky despite being in full sun.

I wish you better luck with your seeds.

Could there have been a disease or pest that only affected a few of your seedlings? I don't know what would stunt them in this way.