For six months, two banana plants grew undetected in a Darwin nature reserve, until they were stumbled upon by ABC staff on a weekend bushwalk and reported to the Banana Freckle Hotline.
The Holmes Jungle Nature Park, managed by the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission, is inside what is known as a red zone, where all bananas were supposed to have been removed in a bid to ensure any remnants of the fungal pathogen responsible for banana freckle would die out.
National Banana Freckle Eradication Program state coordinator Judy D'Errico said the plants, which had since been removed, posed no risk to the ongoing eradication efforts.
"Testing has shown the plants are free of banana freckle," she said.
Ms D'Errico would not speculate about how the plants got into the reserve.
"From time to time we're finding plants and it's usually regrowth," she said.
"It's been a tiny number of addresses where we've found that plants are not being grown under authorisation, which means a permit. "Our fully-qualified inspectors are out there looking all the time. "It's just an unfortunate occurrence that's happened in that nature reserve."
The banana plants were visible from a roadway within the reserve where Parks and Wildlife Commission rangers had failed to notice them.
