Scattered in an orchard in the Bistrita experimental research station of Transylvania, in the Carpathian Mountains, several dozen trees have their trunk marked with a ‘T’ in white paint.They are plum trees that have been genetically modified by the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (Inra) laboratory of Bordeaux, France, so as to tolerate the plum pox virus.
The first trees were tested there from 1996, with the support of the European Commission.Ten years later, after citizen pressure, there’s talk of destroying some.This article looks back on an experiment far from citizens’ eyes.