AHW8: Whole crop spring cereals and 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:

• a spring cereal crop is harvested as whole crop silage (grain and straw together)
• the stubble is left over the autumn and winter months

The purpose of this is to provide:

• late summer, autumn and winter foraging sites for declining and localised farmland birds, small mammals and pollinator species
• overwinter habitat for insects and seed-eating farmland birds

What you must do

You must:

• establish a spring cereal crop (not maize or sorghum)
• harvest the cereal crop as whole crop silage
• remove the grain and straw from the land
• after harvest, leave the stubble over the autumn and winter months

As long as this action’s aim can reasonably be expected to be achieved, you can:

• undersow a seed mix into the spring cereal crop
• use a blend or mix of cereals

You must not apply insecticides to the spring cereal crop after around mid-March, until it’s harvested.

You must not do the following on the stubble area:

• top or graze it
• apply any fertilisers, manures or lime

You must not apply herbicides to the area entered into this action, apart from those containing the following permitted active ingredients:

• amidosulfuron
• clodinafop-propargyl
• fenoxaprop-P-ethyl
• pinoxaden
• tri-allate

It may not be possible for you to use these permitted active ingredients on all crops. It’s your responsibility to confirm whether herbicides are approved for use on the affected crop.

You can use an existing spring cereal crop to get paid for this action if it:

• meets this action’s requirements
• is not already being paid for under another environmental land management scheme action or option, such as CS option AB7 (whole crop cereals)

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 to establish the cereal crop, you must establish it within 12 months of this action’s start date.

In the final year of this action’s duration, you must do this action until the end of the winter months 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 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 you can either:

• move its location for the second and third years of this action’s duration
• do it 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 or 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.