Suspect maize to be hoed in

By SIMON COLLINS

Officials have finally given the go-ahead for possibly genetically modified maize stalks on Crop and Food Research's Pukekohe research station to be ploughed into the ground.

Maize stalks and cobs have been lying on 11 plots at the research station, where the maize crop was harvested for Australia's Pacific Seeds three months ago.

Samples of the maize seed grown there and on other farms near Pukekohe and Gisborne were found last month to have been contaminated with genetically modified material to a level of less than 0.05 per cent.

The entire crop of 30 tonnes of seed has been incinerated. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is still waiting for final tests on seed samples sent to laboratories in Australia and the United States.

The ministry and the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) have now asked Seed Solutions, the Pukekohe company that grew the maize at Crop and Food for Pacific Seeds, to stubble-mulch the remaining material as soon as possible.

"Any maize plants growing from residual seeds in the soil must either be destroyed by further cultivation or by spraying with an approved herbicide," the ministry said.

Jo van Tilburg, of Seed Solutions, said the company was given the decision on Saturday and started ploughing the plots on Monday. The process would take a few days.

She said many cobs left lying on the ground had rotted in the wet in the past three months.

But some seeds were expected to germinate when mulched in. Any new growth would be sprayed with Roundup in about three weeks.

The ministry said the other sites where the maize seed was grown - two in the Pukekohe area and three in Gisborne - had been ploughed over and replanted in grass. No viable seed had been found there.

Seed Solutions is waiting to hear whether it will be allowed to use the sites for new seed crops for other customers in the coming season.

"Our dream is to use those blocks again, but that depends on what Erma will let us do," Mrs van Tilburg said. "If we can't use those blocks, we might have to search for other blocks."

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