SCID helps crops stay pure

By Tim Cronshaw
The Stuff via Checkbiotech.org

About 120 autumn-sown seed crops have been logged into the system, Seed Crop Isolation Distance (SCID), since it went live on the internet in February.

SCID was trialled in Canterbury before being released nationwide. It is administered by the state-owned enterprise AgriQuality.

All the major Canterbury seed companies and most merchant-listed growers are in the system, which can tell, for example, if brassica and vegetable seed crops are planted so close to each other that they are in danger of cross-pollination from wind and insects.

Commercial clients looking for genetic purity are increasingly insisting that conflicting seed crops be planted at least one to two kilometres apart to prevent wind-borne contamination.

AgriQuality's SCID administrator, Evan Johnston, said the system can identify a site and tell the user how far that site is from potentially cross-pollinating crops.

"It gives the merchants and growers a warning that there could be the potential of conflicting crops near their crops," he said. "They only have to lose one crop and potentially $100,000, and that is a huge loss. SCID minimises the risk of this happening."

By accessing SCID maps, users can also look back at a site's history to see what had been grown on it, thus enabling him or her to deal with the risk of past crops rising again.

By fine-tuning distances between crops, better use of the land can be made, said Johnston.

He said other countries have elements of the system, but SCID is the most advanced and extensive one.

The live system replaces manual crop mapping, which needed to be updated every fortnight.

"The advantage is that you can go on this system at any time of the day, access a crop site and find out straight away whether there is potential for conflict," said Johnston.

Information such as crop species, sowing and flowering times, and the isolation distance required is fed into the system by the merchants.

After a site is booked, the system checks for conflicting crops up to a 10km radius.

The system automatically emails merchants and growers information on possible crop conflicts and crop sites being booked.

To protect the interest of other users, a seed company can only access crop sites of their listed growers.

Registered growers can only view crop sites on their property.

The project is funded by MAF's Sustainable Farming Fund and co-ordinated by the Foundation for Arable Research.

The maps were developed from AgriQuality's AgriBase database.

Johnston said SCID is a useful tool for growers, but it should not be seen as a replacement for neighbourly discussions, which have always taken place.

The system may have wider use if the commercial release of genetically engineered crops is allowed in New Zealand under compulsory isolation zones, said Johnston.

© Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2004

Related reference: California Seed Growers Isolation Pin Map