The UK government has opened the door to a new wave of open-air trials of genetically modified crops — now rebranded as “precision bred organisms” (PBOs). These trials are happening across England, in fields belonging to universities, research institutes, commercial farms and private companies.
Beyond GM is tracking these releases because the information made public by the government is minimal and often hard to find. The official government web page for Genetically Modified Organisms: Applications, Decisions and Notifications lists only brief descriptions of precision bred trials, with no accessible details about who is conducting the tests or where they are located and no simple explanations of what is being tested. There is no long-term record of what happens to the crops after the trial and no clear way for farmers, beekeepers or nearby residents to track what experiments are happening near them.
What is clear is that the working estimate of 1-2 trials per year made by the government when the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 was passed have been quickly exceeded. In just two years with the passage of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025, these figures were revised to 18 trials per year by the end of 2035. But we are already well on the way to meeting or even exceeding that prediction by the end of 2025.
This isn’t just nerdy number crunching. These trials are paid for with taxpayers’ money – the same taxpayers who have consistently demanded greater transparency on all GMOs, including precision bred GMOs. As the numbers increase and as more trials are used for non-research purposes – such as demonstration (advertisement) fields and seed multiplication – so does the risk of inadvertent contamination of non-GM and organic crops and the food supply chain.
We believe that openness and accountability are the foundation of public trust in any new genetic technology. This page brings together what is known about current and past GM-PBO field trials in England, with plain English descriptions of the trials and links to the original Defra documents. Our aim is to maintain a current, easy to understand list and, over time, expand it with background information and updates on ‘precision bred’ GMO varieties and products to help make sense of how the new regulations are unfolding in practice.
| ID | Project title | Crop | Summary | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25/Q14 | Increasing sweetness of tomato fruits | Tomato | Testing whether switching off a gene in tomatoes can alter the fruit’s natural sugar content and make it taste sweeter | Nov 2025 to Oct 2027 |
| 25/Q13 | Strengthening the stem of tomato plants | Tomato | Testing whether switching off a gene in tomatoes can make the stems stronger and less likely to collapse during growth | Nov 2025 to Oct 2027 |
| 25/Q12 | Improved flavour of tomato fruit | Tomato | Testing whether switching off a gene in tomatoes alters/improves the taste of the fruit | Nov 2025 to Oct 2027 |
| 25/Q11 | Reducing cold-induced sweetening in potato tubers | Potato | Testing whether gene editing potatoes to stop their starch turning into sugar when kept in cold storage, can affect taste and quality | Nov 2025 to Oct 2028 |
| 25/Q10 | Increasing dormancy time in potato tubers | Potato | Testing whether gene editing potatoes to make them stay dormant for longer after harvest, helps them store better without sprouting too soon | Nov 2025 to Oct 2028 |
| 25/Q09 | Short Vegetative Phase (SVP) cis-regulation in bread wheat | Wheat | Removing sections of DNA that help control how certain wheat genes switch on and off, to see if this change makes the plants produce bigger grains and heavier wheat grains | Jan 2025 to Sep 2026 |
| 25/Q08 | Improving photosynthesis capabilities in gene-edited wheat | Wheat | Gene-editing wheat to alter how it uses sunlight and test if this makes it grow more efficiently and produce higher yields | Jan 2025 to Oct 2030 |
| 25/Q07 | Short vegetative phase (SVP) cis-regulation in bread wheat | Wheat | Removing sections of DNA that help control how certain wheat genes switch on and off, to see if this change makes the plants produce bigger grains and heavier wheat grains. | Apr 2025 to Oct 2026 |
| 25/Q06 | Field assessment of wheat GSK1 knockout lines | Wheat | Field testing gene-edited wheat, in which certain genes have been switched off, to see if it can increase yields with fewer or no fertiliser applications | Apr 2025 to Mar 2027 |
| 25/Q05 | Field assessment of oilseed rape gene-edited to enhance seed oil content | Oilseed rape | Assessing the field performance of gene-edited oilseed rape in which certain genes have been doubled-up in order to increase yield of seed oil | Jan 2025 to Mar 2028 |
| 25/Q04 | Field scale trials of Cadenza low asparagine qualifying higher plant (QHP) lines 23 (Acrylow Cadenza (PBO) 23) and 59 (Acrylow Cadenza (PBO) 59) | Wheat | Multiplying the seeds from two gene-edited winter wheat lines that have been changed to produce very low levels of asparagine. The saved seeds will be used in future trials to test how much acrylamide forms when the grain is processed into food | Mar 2025 to Sep 2027 |
| 25/Q03 | Eliminating tuber browning | Potato | Testing whether the removal of certain genes in potatoes can prevent browning due to damage during storage and production | Sep 2025 to Aug 2027 |
| 25/Q02 | Improved tomato harvesting | Tomato | Testing whether removing a specific gene in tomatoes can produce jointless plants more suited to mechanical harvesting. Seeds from successful plants will be harvested for future use | Sep 2025 to Aug 2027 |
| 25/Q01 | Tomatoes optimized for indoor growth | Tomato | Assessing the performance of gene-edited tomatoes intended to be grown in a climate-controlled, indoor environment | May 2025 to Apr 2026 |
| ID | Project title | Crop | Summary | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/Q07 | Precision-bred high-linolenic acid Camelina | Camelina | Testing the field performance of two separate lines gene-edited to produce seed oil containing enhanced levels of the omega-3 fatty acid α-linolenic acid | Apr 2025 to Mar 2028 |
| 24/Q06 | Precision-bred cisgenic Camelina with improved agronomic performance | Camelina | Assessing altered plant so see if a) they can better tolerate a common weedkiller and b) grow with a stronger, more stable structure | Apr 2025 to Mar 2027 |
| 24/Q05 | Demonstration of low asparagine, low acrylamide, genome edited wheat (Triticum aestivum) and high lipid genome edited barley (Hordeum vulgare) at an agricultural show |
Wheat/ Barley | Growing a 1m2 plot each of low asparagine, gene-edited wheat at an agricultural show for demonstration (advertisement) purposes | Oct 2024 to Sep 2025 & Apr 2024 to Mar 2025 |
| 24/Q04 | Tomatoes optimized for indoor growth | Tomato | Assessing the performance of gene-edited tomatoes intended to be grown in a climate-controlled, indoor environment | May 2024 to Apr 2025 |
| 24/Q03 | Field assessment of dwarfed diploid potato lines | Potato | Field testing potato plants gene-edited to be shorter and assessing how this affects their growth | Apr 2024 to Oct 2026 |
| 24/Q02 | Field assessment of potato lines resistant to late blight, potato virus Y (PVY) and potato leafroll virus (PLRV) | Potato | Assessing the field performance of potatoes gene-edited to resist diseases like late blight and viruses. | Apr 2024 to Oct 2026 |
| 24/Q01 | Short Vegetative Phase (SVP) cis-regulation in bread wheat | Wheat | Removing sections of DNA that help control how certain wheat genes switch on and off, to see if this makes the plants produce larger and heavier wheat grains | Mar 2024 to Aug 2025 |
| ID | Project title | Crop | Summary | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23/Q09 | Demonstration of low asparagine, low acrylamide, genome edited wheat at an Agricultural show in 2024 | Wheat | Growing a 1m2 plot of low asparagine, gene-edited wheat at an agricultural show for demonstration (advertisement) purposes. | Oct 2023 to Jun 2024 |
| 23/Q08 | Improved tomato harvesting | Tomato | Testing whether removing a specific gene in tomatoes can produce jointless plants more suited to mechanical harvesting. Seeds from successful plants will be harvested for future use | Sep 2023 to Aug 2025 |
| 23/Q07 | Eliminating tuber browning | Potato | Assessing the effectiveness of altering potato genetics to eliminate browning in damaged tubers | Sep 2023 to Aug 2025 |
| 23/Q06 | Testing Sl7DR-2 knockout lines of tomato for conversion of provitamin D3 to vitamin D3 in sunlight | Tomato | Testing whether normal sunlight can stimulate the production of a vitamin D precursor in gene-edited tomatoes, thereby eliminating the need for post-harvest UV light treatment | Jul 2023 to Sept 2024 |
| 23/Q05 | Potato late blight resistance in gene edited S. americanum | Potato | Disabling two disease resistance genes in wild potatoes to study how these genes work against late blight | Jun 2023 to Sep 2024 |
| 23/Q04 | Maintaining current yields under lower fertiliser inputs by loss of GSK1 in barley | Barley | Field testing gene-edited barley to see if it can increase yields with fewer or no fertiliser applications | Apr 2023 to Mar 2026 |
| 23/Q03 | Field assessment of high lipid barley | Barley | Testing the field performance and nutritional composition of barley gene-edited to contain more oil in its stems and leaves for enhanced animal feed that may reduce methane emissions from cattle | Apr 2023 to Aug 2026 |
| 23/Q02 | Field assessment of gene edited Oilseed Rape with pod shatter resistance | Oilseed rape | Researchers are testing oilseed rape with altered genes to check how well it grows and whether seed pods remain closed until harvest | Aug 2023 to Sep 2026 |
| 23/Q01 | SVP (short vegetative phase) cis-regulation in bread wheat | Wheat | Removing sections of DNA that help control how certain wheat genes switch on and off, to see if this change makes the plants produce bigger grains and heavier wheat grains | Mar 2024 to Aug 2023 |
| ID | Project title | Crop | Summary | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22/Q03 | Field assessment of ultra-low asparagine, low acrylamide, transgene-free, gene-edited wheat | Wheat | Multiplying seed from wheat gene edited to produce low levels of asparagine – a chemical that can form acrylamide in baked goods — to enable a larger field trial | Dec 2022 to Aug 2026 |
| 22/Q02 | Testing Sl7DR-2 knockout lines of tomato for conversion of provitamin D3 to vitamin D3 in sunlight | Tomato | Testing whether normal sunlight can stimulate the production of a vitamin D precursor in gene -edited tomatoes, thereby eliminating the need for post-harvest UV light treatment | Jun 2022 to Sep 2022 |
| 22/Q01 | Modulating seed oil content in gene-edited Camelina | Camelina | Growing four gene-edited lines of Camelina to see how well they perform in the field and to measure the oil, protein and carbohydrate content of the resulting seeds | May 2022 to Oct 2025 |
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