In 1982 Lindow discovered that the removal of a specific gene from the ubiquitous bacterium Pseudomonas syringae could shut down production of a chemical responsible for the early formation of ice crystals on plants. He suggested that plants colonized primarily by the altered bacteria instead of the wild type could be protected from frost damage even when the temperature was well below freezing.
His proposal to test the idea triggered a storm of controversy and legal battles that are still raging. Although there were no demonstrators at Tulelake, five days earlier there were hundreds of reporters and protesters on hand for the spraying of similarly altered bacteria, with the trade name Frostban, on a strawberry plot east of here. Lindow's lab had supplied material to Advanced Genetic Sciences, the Oakland company that conducted that test.
"This whole area of the competitive exclusion of organisms that might be considered deleterious to ...
