Ananova:

A huge operation aimed at sabotaging the Government's GM potato trial backfired - when the 250 protesters got the wrong field.

They swooped on the 16-hectare site, outside Hull, armed with shovels and planted thousands of organic potatoes, reports the Guardian.

Activists from Mutatoes.org apologised to farmer David Buckton after it emerged that they wrongly identified his land as the site of the GM trial.

The field they planted was sown with beans.

Mr Buckton, 54, said the mix-up was the strangest event to have befallen his family in four generations of farming.

He said the protesters were accompanied by two police officers on horseback.

"I told the police officers that it was a bean field but they said the protest seemed peaceful so we'd better let them get on with it. The beans are just about peeping through. The protesters should have been able to see that," he said.

In a statement Mutatoes.org said: "With the information that we had and the short timescale available to us... we sincerely believed this to be the correct field.

"The public were not given sufficient information by the government, who supplied only a four-figure grid reference for the location of the trial.

"While it is regrettable that the wrong site and farmer were targeted, we would also like to make it clear... that people will continue to disrupt the planting of GM crops despite the difficulties faced by this lack of full disclosure."