Red Tractor soil and nutrient requirements
Guide

Red Tractor soil and nutrient requirements

The soil and nutrient records Red Tractor asks for at audit, what auditors look for, and how to have them ready before the visit.

What the auditor is looking for

It comes down to evidence

Red Tractor's soil and nutrient requirements are mostly about evidence. An auditor wants to see that you've assessed your soils, planned your nutrients against a recognised standard, and can produce the records.

Most non-conformances here are paperwork gaps rather than farming ones. The plan existed in someone's head, or in a spreadsheet nobody could find on the day.

The standards are revised between versions and differ by sector, so treat what follows as the shape of the requirement and check the current standard for your scheme.

Soil analysis

Analysis for pH, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium is expected on a regular cycle. In practice that's every five years for most farms, which also matches what the Farming Rules for Water require in England. Our soil sampling guide covers how to take a sample that stands up and what else is now worth testing for.

Two things to watch:

  • Coverage, not just recency. One recent sample doesn't cover a whole farm. The auditor works field by field, and rented or newly taken ground is where the gaps usually are. Soil Benchmark flags the fields coming up for resampling against your own boundaries, so a gap surfaces months out rather than on the morning of the visit.
  • Keep the certificates. Numbers typed into a plan aren't evidence on their own.

The two plans you need

Soil management

You're expected to have assessed the risks to your soils and to be doing something about them. In practice that means a written soil management plan covering:

  • The soil type and texture of each field.
  • The risks that apply - erosion, compaction, capping, run-off, organic matter decline.
  • What you're doing about them, and where.
  • Evidence you've actually looked, such as dated observations or a spade test.

This is the same ground a SAM1 soil management plan covers, so if you've done one for SFI you're most of the way there. Our SAM1 and NUM1 guide sets out what those plans have to contain, and what's still required of you now both actions have gone from SFI26.

Nutrient management

Applications need to be planned against crop requirement using RB209 or an equivalent recognised standard, and the plan needs to be current for the cropping year rather than a document written three seasons ago.

Advice should come from someone suitably qualified. FACTS qualification is the usual benchmark, but check what your sector's standard actually requires.

Your plan should show, for each field:

  • The crop and expected yield.
  • The soil indices it's built on.
  • The nutrient requirement that follows.
  • The contribution from organic manures, counted as available nutrients rather than tonnes applied.
  • The manufactured fertiliser needed to make up the difference.

If you're in an NVZ, the NVZ rules add a nitrogen ceiling on top of all this, and the storage guide covers the manure records that sit underneath it.

Records, imports, and getting ready for the visit

Records of what actually happened

The plan is only half of it. You also need records of applications as they were made - product, rate, date and field. Auditors routinely cross-check a couple of fields between the plan and the records, and a mismatch you can't explain escalates.

If you're in an NVZ, your NVZ records do a lot of this work already, but they're not a substitute for the plan itself.

Manures and imports

If you import organic material, keep the paperwork with it - where it came from, how much, when it was spread and what its analysis was. Imported manures are a common weak point because the source is somebody else's record keeping.

Getting ready for the visit

The week before an audit, check three things:

  1. Is there current analysis for every field, including anything taken on this year?
  2. Does the nutrient plan match the crops that are actually in the ground?
  3. Can you put your hand on the application records without going through a season of diary entries?

Sources

Last checked 28th August 2026. Red Tractor standards are revised between versions, so check the current standard for your sector before relying on a requirement here.

Producing a soil management plan

Turn your soil results into a plan you can hand over

Soil Sage builds a soil management plan field by field from your analysis and your boundaries, maps erosion and run-off risk, and tracks which fields are due for resampling. Export it when you need it for an inspector, an assurance auditor or a scheme agreement. Drafting is free on as many farms as you like.
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