AHW6: Basic overwinter stubble

No substantive changes have been made to this action for SFI26 (compared with the SFI24 version). There have only been minor updates to standard wording which appears in all area-based SFI actions.

This action’s aim is that there’s a post-harvest stubble remaining over the autumn and winter months.

The purpose of this is to provide:

• a winter food source for seed-eating farmland birds
• foraging habitats for farmland wildlife

What you must do

You must not apply pre-harvest desiccants to the cereal crop, oilseed rape or linseed.

After harvest, you must leave the stubble from a cereal crop, oilseed rape or linseed until around mid-February.

You must not do the following on the stubble area:

• top or graze it
• apply post-harvest herbicides
• apply any fertilisers, manures or lime

When to do it

You must do this action each year of its 3-year duration.

If this action’s start date means it’s too late for you to do this action, you must start doing it within 12 months of the action’s start date.

In the final year of this action’s duration, you must do the action until around mid-February or this action’s end date, whichever is earlier.

Where you can do it

You can do this action on agricultural land located below the moorland line that’s:

• identified by you as not being at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff – you must keep evidence of this
• an eligible land type (as defined in section 5.1.1 ‘Eligible land types’ in the SFI26 scheme information)
• registered with an eligible land cover on your digital maps
• declared with a land use code which is compatible with the eligible land cover

Rotational or static

This action is rotational or static. This means it can either:

• move location within your crop rotation for the second and third years of this action’s duration
• remain at the same location each year of this action’s duration

Evidence to keep

You must keep written evidence that land entered into this action is not at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff. You can use the soil management plan you’ve already produced for SFI24 action CSAM1 or SFI23 action SAM1 to identify this.

You must also keep evidence to show what you’ve done to complete this action, such as:

• field operations at a land parcel level and associated invoices
• photographs and other documentation

If it’s not clear that you’ve done this action in a way that could reasonably be expected to achieve its aim, we may ask for this evidence.

You must supply the evidence if we ask for it.