A plantation containing nearly 50,000 marijuana plants discovered in a sweetcorn field near Lelystad on Wednesday belongs to Wageningen University, news agency ANP reported on Thursday, quoting Ton van Scheppingen, director of the university’s plant research unit.

.



Police found the plantation after a tip-off. The field has an estimated street value of €4.4m, ANP said.

Police had begun clearing the plants but stopped when shown the university’s official licence to grow cannabis.

ANP did not state why the university needed so many plants and what sort of research was being carried out.

According to Radio Netherlands, the field is part of an experiment to find out if hemp can replace cotton as a textile crop.