“…Previous studies have revealed the potential of truncation of this gene for the improvement of the insecticidal properties of baculovirus (X. Chen et al, ; Cory et al, ; Georgievska et al, ; O'Reilly & Miller, ; Simón, Williams, López‐Ferber, & Caballero, ). Our egt knockout has shown similar levels of improvement as previous studies with other egt knockout mutants generated by insertion on the egt locus of a selecting marker (Cory et al, ; Georgievska et al, ; O'Reilly & Miller, ) and consequently considered as GM virus. From an applied point of view, and although certain countries are currently debating about the consideration of CRISPR/Cas9 mutants as GM or not (Gelinsky & Hilbeck, ; Shew, Nalley, Snell, Nayga, & Dixon, ), our results provide new tools for the generation of GM‐free virus with improved properties and potential use in the field.…”