In another extraordinary development in the saga of Dr Kevin Folta, one of the most prominent defenders of glyphosate and GMOs, his own wife has accused him of trying to hide monies paid to him by corporations. Folta denies all her charges.

Folta is already suing the New York Times, and its two-time Pulitzer prize winning reporter Eric Lipton, for defamation over a front-page article that used Folta as a prime example of how some academics had become “actors in lobbying and corporate public relations campaigns”. The article also accused him of not having disclosed the extent of his ties to Monsanto.

His estranged wife’s intervention came after Folta told his followers in a blog that he was “going through a rather nasty divorce”, having “put the nail in the coffin of a stale relationship that needed to end”.