The Ministry for the Environment has released its guidance around how regulations capping the use of synthetic nitrogen affect cropping farms.
The nitrogen cap sets a yearly limit on the amount of synthetic nitrogen that farmers may apply to the grazed land on each of their contiguous landholdings (1st July – 30th June).
Pastoral use land (any grazed land) |
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Pasture (grassland used primarily for grazing) |
No hectare of pasture may receive more than 190 kilograms of synthetic nitrogen in a year. |
Annual forage crops (land other than pasture used primarily for grazing) |
The limit of 190 kilograms/hectare/year may be exceeded on annual forage crops if the average for all the pastoral use land is kept within cap. |
Other pastoral use land (land that is intermittently grazed but is primarily used for other purposes eg, arable, horticultural, forestry, hay, silage, ‘cut and carry’, and seed crops) |
The synthetic nitrogen limit for other pastoral use land is similar to that for annual forage crops. The cap is in effect on other pastoral use land until the end of the last grazing period before harvest. |
Other land (all land that is not grazed) |
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The nitrogen cap does not apply to other land, but dairy farm annual nitrogen reports must report any synthetic nitrogen applied to other land if it is contiguous with the dairy platform. |
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If arable crops are grazed, then these areas are considered to be in pastoral use land and are covered by the nitrogen cap until the last grazing episode before harvest. Once the final grazing ceases through to harvest, these areas are no longer in pastoral use and so are not covered by the nitrogen cap. If the only grazing that occurs on a crop is on the stubble after the harvest, then any fertiliser used to grow that crop before harvest is not capped.
After harvest, the 190 kilograms of nitrogen/hectare/year limit only applies to crop stubble areas where synthetic nitrogen is used to promote the growth of new vegetation that will be grazed.
Arable farmers who have livestock grazing on their farm should keep good records of when, where and how much synthetic nitrogen is applied to the grazed areas.
The table above is part of the full can be found in the full Ministry for the Environment guidance document on the MfE website (Table 2).