diff --git a/org.eclipse.jgit.test/tst/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/FileTreeIteratorWithTimeControl.java b/org.eclipse.jgit.test/tst/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/FileTreeIteratorWithTimeControl.java
index fc19321c0..bb76d0075 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.jgit.test/tst/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/FileTreeIteratorWithTimeControl.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.jgit.test/tst/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/FileTreeIteratorWithTimeControl.java
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
  * This class was written especially to test racy-git problems
  */
 public class FileTreeIteratorWithTimeControl extends FileTreeIterator {
-	private TreeSet<Long> modTimes = new TreeSet<Long>();
+	private TreeSet<Long> modTimes;
 
 	public FileTreeIteratorWithTimeControl(FileTreeIterator p, Repository repo,
 			TreeSet<Long> modTimes) {
@@ -99,7 +99,9 @@ public AbstractTreeIterator createSubtreeIterator(final ObjectReader reader) {
 
 	@Override
 	public long getEntryLastModified() {
-		Long cutOff = Long.valueOf(super.getEntryLastModified());
+		if (modTimes == null)
+			return 0;
+		Long cutOff = Long.valueOf(super.getEntryLastModified() + 1);
 		SortedSet<Long> head = modTimes.headSet(cutOff);
 		return head.isEmpty() ? 0 : head.last().longValue();
 	}