DEFRA have today announced that the deadline for BPS applications and Countryside Stewardship annual revenue claims has been extended to 15th June 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend you still submit your claims and applications as soon as possible to ensure prompt payment when the payment window opens. Note there are no changes to the deadline for new Countryside Stewardship applications, which still stands as 1st May for Higher Tier and 31st July for Mid Ti

Shoppers are still reporting a problem getting milk in many areas yet as an industry we are dumping milk!! Some of you will be facing very serious issues where certain milk buyers supplying the food service sectors have lost almost all of their demand and we hope this remains a very temporary issue. Some others have been asked to cut back milk production slightly. It is important that you do not change herd management that will cause any long term problems, i.e., reduce feed

GRASS SILAGE Another fine week of warmer weather has seen grass crops push on. We looked at a couple of grass samples again this week and sugar levels are very good and would be over 4% if crops were wilted to 30% dry matter, (over 3% is the critical figure). Protein has gone up in these samples as the grass roots gets more active and pull in more nitrogen from the soil but nitrates are still low. Some silage has already been cut and yields have been surprisingly good at ove

The Basic Payment Scheme is being phased out, and payments will gradually reduce. We now have confirmation that the final payments will be made for the 2027 scheme year. Reductions will start from 2021 on a sliding scale dependent on the total value of your current payment. We have developed a quick calculator tool you can use to get an idea of your expected payment in 2021 which you can access by clicking here. From 2022 the reductions will increase, but there has been no

We hope you have all avoided the virus so far, and that isolation isn't causing too much disruption. Grass and Grass silage We sent an email out last month reminding you not to over-do fertiliser applications as they are so late going on this year. We are still getting some enquiries about putting fertiliser on now and just to recap – if the cover of grass is such that fertiliser will all lodge on the grass and not reach the soil it will better not to apply any and get