AHW7: Enhanced overwinter stubble

The following changes have been made to this action for SFI26 (compared with the SFI24 version):

• this action is now a 25% ‘limited area’ action – this only applies to this action in SFI26 agreements, but the 25% limit applies across all your SFI agreements
• 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 during the autumn, winter, spring and summer months.

The purpose of this is to provide:

• a winter food source for seed-eating farmland birds
• spring and summer foraging and nesting habitats for other farmland birds, and habitats for other farmland wildlife

What you must do

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

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

You must not do the following on the stubble area:

• top or graze it
• apply any pesticides, except herbicides to control grass weeds by spraying the affected area from around mid-May
• 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-summer 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 compatible with the eligible land cover

Rotational or static

This is a rotational action – this means you must move its location within your crop rotation for the second and third years of this action’s duration.

It counts toward the 25% limit

This is a ‘limited area’ action. The total eligible area you enter into any combination of one or more of the ‘limited area’ actions must not be more than 25% of the total agricultural area of your farm. Read section 4.5 ‘Limited area SFI actions’ in the SFI26 scheme information for more details (including a list of ‘limited area’ actions).

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.