What really happened in Memphis on Saturday January 17, 1998. Not Bombs Important Links Updated August 11, 1998. In fact, while there has been such a furore about GE crops, the foresters have been quietly getting on with creating the greatest change to the planet's trees that is has ever seen. And while there are only test plots of GE trees in the UK, there are plantations of over 1.5 million acres of GE plantations worldwide. But there is much more already in planning or production.
Trees are such fertile ground for manipulation.
They are still very 'wild'. Whereas it has taken teosinte, for example, some 5000 generations to become maize, the most altered trees still lag some 4996 generations behind. Already there have been major breakthroughs in the speed with which trees reach a harvestable size. And there are other plans to lower the lignin content of trees. But the creation of a new generation of 'Frankenstein trees' raises wide concerns.