A genetically modified crop boosted with a dietary supplement could be grown for the first time in Britain as early as this year following a request by scientists to conduct a controversial field trial at a heavily-protected research site in Hertfordshire.
The government-funded researchers have applied this week for formal permission to grow the first GM plants that are designed to produce high yields of the same omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil, which are linked with a healthy diet.
They could receive the go-ahead within three months and the first GM seeds could be sown this spring on the same high-security plot of land within the large estate owned by Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, where GM wheat trials took place successfully over the previous two years without being destroyed by activists.
