Remnants of condemned GE crop left for birds

By SIMON COLLINS science reporter

Pigeons are still feeding off the remnants of a maize crop grown for Pacific Seeds at Crop and Food Research's Pukekohe research station, 10 days after genetically modified material was detected in maize grown for the company.

Maize stalks are still in the ground, and rotting corncobs are lying where they were left by harvesting Machines.

Numerous pigeons and flocks of sparrows were nestling in the abandoned crop when the Herald visited yesterday.

Pacific Seeds confirmed on Thursday that further tests in Melbourne had confirmed "low level contamination" of genetically modified maize in the 21 tonnes of maize it harvested from 10 sites at Pukekohe and in nine tonnes harvested at Gisborne.

A briefing for ministers posted on the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry website reveals that nine of the 10 plots in the Pukekohe area were on the 50ha Crop and Food station.

Rene Tilburg of Seed Solutions, which grew the maize on contract to Pacific Seeds, yesterday refused to allow the Herald on to the plots he leases, citing the danger of sabotage after two attacks in recent years on Crop and Food's GM research at Lincoln near Christchurch.

"This is inadvertent contamination. That is quite a different thing [from deliberate GM research]," he said. "Unfortunately that doesn't stop the radical faction, and we are just trying to keep a low profile in the sense of where this land is."

However, Crop and Food, a crown research institute, allowed the Herald on to its own land to photograph the Seed Solutions plots, which are scattered throughout the research station.

The institute's maize expert, Allan Hardacre, said the samples sent to Melbourne did not come from the maize grown at the Crop and Food station.

He said a non-GM maize crop which he managed on the same property was 110m away from the nearest Seed Solutions land, and was planted 14 days before the Seed Solutions crop to minimise the danger of cross-pollination.

The "female" part of the maize plant was receptive to pollen for only five to 15 days, so the non-GM crop should no longer have been receptive by the time the contaminated crop produced seed.

He said maize was an artificial plant created by people in Central America several thousand years ago, and was normally propagated by human hand. Maize pollen was "live" for only 20 minutes, and was most unlikely to have been spread by birds.

However, the lobby group GE-Free NZ called yesterday for the Government to do "a full audit of what crops are and are not GE-contaminated".

Seed company Corsons said this week that it grew GM maize in Gisborne for the multinational company Ciba-Geigy from 1994 to 1998.

MAF plant biosecurity director Richard Ivess said GM testing of imported seeds was not required until a year ago for sweetcorn and August 1 this year for maize.

Tests will not be required for canola until October 1, and rules for other crops which are widely modified in the US, such as soya beans, are still being prepared.

"The testing is relatively new to the world. We are leading the world on this."

He said tests cost $200 to $500 for each sample, and the cost of auditing all NZ crops would be "phenomenal".

Mr Hardacre said about 16,000ha of maize were planted in New Zealand each year for poultry feed, starch and cornflakes, and about 20,000ha for silage for cattle.

Mr Ivess said NZ plantings of the most widely modified crop, soya beans, totalled only about 4ha.

Pacific Seeds' international manager, Nick Gardner, said the latest test found the 35S promoter gene, an indicator of genetic modification, in less than 0.05 per cent of the total DNA in the company's maize crop.

The crop is being destroyed at the Auckland Airport incinerator.

* Britain's controversial GM crop-testing programme has been suspended after news that 14 fields have been contaminated with unauthorised seeds since trials began three years ago, the Independent reports.

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