THE Home Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA) has explained how the CAP Reform’s new “greening” requirements will affect cereals and oilseed growers.

Crop diversification – the “two or three crop rule” – says a farmer with ten or more hectares of arable land, must follow crop diversification rules to receive the full greening payment.

The rules differ for different areas of arable land:

  • less than ten hectares of arable land: no crop diversification required;
  • ten to 30 ha: at least two different crops with the largest covering no more than 75 per cent of the arable area;
  • more than 30ha: at least three different crops with the largest not covering more than 75 per cent and the two largest crops together not covering more than 95 per cent of the arable area.

The definition of spring and winter varieties of the same crop is particularly important. For crop diversification purposes, spring and winter varieties count as separate crops.

Growers can use the spring and winter categories from the HGCA Recommended Lists to check compliance with crop diversification rules.

However, spring and winter crops are defined by their classification on the National List, not the date they are sown.

The National List is published by the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and details crop varieties which can be legally marketed in the UK.

It is available at fera.defra.gov.uk/plants/publications/ga zette.cfm The HGCA Recommended Lists use the information from the National List to define winter or spring varities.

Anyone growing varieties not on the HGCA Recommended Lists needs to refer to the National List.

In the HGCA Recommended Lists, there is a table called “spring wheat (for late autumn sowing)”, which provides agronomic information about varietal performance at different sowing dates.

It does not define spring or winter varieties with respect to CAP crop diversification.

If a crop is not classed as either winter or spring on the National List, it is classed as a spring crop under the greening rules.

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) need to be equivalent to at least five per cent of the total arable area for farms with more than 15ha of eligible arable land.

Farmers can choose which areas and (or) features make up their Ecological Focus Areas from buffer strips, nitrogen- fixing crops, hedges, fallow land and catch crops and cover crops.

The latest Defra document provides further information on the definition for each of these, and identifies crops considered as “nitrogen-fixing” under the EFA rules.