KEY POINTS:
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has temporarily suspended replanting of land on the East Coast where genetically engineered sweetcorn seed was destroyed.
While a Wairoa crop inadvertently planted with GE seed was being harrowed, a MAF official found a small patch of seed that had only just germinated.
The rest of the three-week-old planting was 3m high.
"We don't know why this has happened and today are wandering around the remaining areas that would be replanted to make sure there is no late germination," MAF spokesman Brett Sangster said.
After test showed 1807kg of sweetcorn seed planted on 258.4ha of Hawke's Bay and Gisborne farms contained illicit GE seed, MAF ordered the crops to be harrowed, with the growing plants chopped and buried.
Some of the GE sweetcorn was harrowed last week and the rest of the crops were to be destroyed over the next two weeks, once they reached the stage that all seeds had germinated. Some farmers have said Christmas may be the latest that affected fields could be economically re-planted with sweetcorn for the processing sector.
About 80 per cent of the 57 hectares of affected land in Gisborne was to be replanted while about 20 per cent of 201 ha in Hawke's Bay was to be replanted.
Syngenta, the American seed company that supplied the seed, has agreed to compensate farmers for any costs involved in the GE contaminated seed.
- NZPA
