(cm) On the 18th of March, ETH Zurich started the planned field trial of transgenic wheat (1) on the site of the research institute in Lindau-Eschikon. Grain by grain and in the presence of specialists from the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape (SAEFL) the seed was sown in the designated field.

Head of the project, Christoph Sautter, justifies the timing with the start of the mild spring weather. Following the permit from the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) (2) the researchers waited three weeks for possible protests but for practical reasons the trial now had to begin. Because the wheat blight being studied in the trial can only develop if temperatures aren't too high.

In all 1,600 transgenetic wheat seeds are spread over a secured trial area of 90 square metres, in small beds measuring half a square metre, each. Control plants are planted between the beds and a coat of protecting plants will surround the whole. The outdoor trial will run for about four months but first results aren't expected before the end of the year.

ETH people bring the GM wheat seed onto the trial plot.

Greenpeace calls the sowing a "scandal". The organisation continues to demand that the experiment be broken off because it considers the ecological risk to be too high. With the initial step of outdoor trials, Greenpeace, together with the small-farmers union, fear that the field trial is the beginning of a commercialisation process for GM food in Switzerland, despite assurances from ETH that this experiment serves only fundamental research. The ETH trial is also being criticised by the "Call from Basle against genetic technology" and the Green Party.