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After identifying one gene that manifested itself in all the salt-tolerant beans yet mutated in all the salt-sensitive ones, they inserted it into salt-sensitive soybean roots and tobacco cells and found that the gene caused them to become more tolerant to salt. Lam said it would be much quicker to genetically modify the soybeans to make them salt tolerant, but the regulatory process for approving genetic modification in China was still "unclear". "There is too much controversy about GM technology today, so we [are] taking a longer route," Lam said, adding that he wanted to work with as many farmers as possible to begin cultivating salt-tolerant soybeans. Two institutions - in northeast and northwest China - have expressed interest in using Lam's methods.