A "marijuana plantation" which was discovered in Lelystad on Wednesday turns out to be a legal Wageningen University test plot.

Academics are using the field to ascertain whether hemp could replace cotton as a textile crop.

After an anonymous tip-off, a police helicopter was used to find the field. Police officers had begun uprooting the plants when Wageningen University contacted the police and showed official permits for growing hemp. The officers immediately suspended their destruction of the crop.

The field contained approximately 47,000 hemp plants which would have had a street value of 4.4 million euros - if the plants had not been manipulated so that they don't produce the hallucinogenic ingredient THC. They had been modified to make sure their fibre is stronger than that of ordinary marijuana plants.

As a result, the "drug plantation" crop had a street value of exactly 0 euros.

Photo: World-mysteries.com