Study recommends 20 metres buffer zone
A pollen barrier of 20 metres of conventional maize is enough to separate GM and conventional maize fields and to keep out-crossings below 0.9%. This is the result from a coexistence study published in the most recent issue of Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science.
The
research was conducted in 2004. Accompanying the first field scale
cultivation of the GM maize MON810 in Germany, a team of scientists tested
samples from surrounding conventional maize for GM content at distances of 0 to
60 metres in all four directions. No samples collected at more than ten metres
from the GM maize field showed GM levels above the labelling threshold of
0.9%.
GM seed producers in Germany already took these results into
account as soon as the experiments had been evaluated in 2005.
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