ice-minus

The bacteria were successful as well as trackable: ice-minus appears to reduce frost damage early in the growing season by up to 80%.

In the laboratory, leaves coated with the microbes have briefly withstood temperatures as low as 23 degrees F. In 1982 Lindow and Panopoulos applied for permission to treat potatoes with ice-minus.

In 1983 Lindow got permission from the NIH to test his bugs, which he called ice-minus, on a small plot of potatoes in Northern California.

Outside the courtroom, Rifkin warned that the widespread use of ice-minus would lead to all sorts of natural disasters, including the disruption of rainfall patterns.