A number of new rules for all farmers have been rolled out by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) in relation to nitrates requirements.

Some of these nitrates rules are relevant to all farmers while others are only relevant to farms above a certain stocking rate and some are only relevant to farmers in derogation.

All farms are required to adhere to preventing runoff from farm roadways into waters and to stack bales no greater than two in height where there is no effluent store. Bales should also be stacked more than 20m from surface water.

No chemical fertiliser should be spread within 3m of waterways. All farms are expected to have soiled water storage for the month of December.

The new nitrates requirements for all farms this year are as follows:

Inclusion of clover (1.5kg/Ha) when reseeding;
Slurry movements must be declared within four days;
Bovines over two-years-of-age must not be fed ration over 14% protein from April to September;
Unprotected urea to be banned from September 2025;
Commonage land restricted to 50kg N/ha.

In addition to the above rules, all farmers with a stocking rate greater than 100kg nitrogen (N)/ha or above are required to use low emission slurry spreading (LESS) from this year onwards and must have sufficient slurry storage for animals over winter.

Farmers stocked over 13kg N/ha must have in-date soil samples and, where no up-to-date soil samples are available, it is assumed the farm has no chemical phosphorus (P) allowance.

Farmers stocked over 170kg N/ha are required to lime fields in need of corrective pH action and are obliged to exclude all bovines from watercourses. As well as all the measures mentioned above, farms stocked over 170kg N/Ha are required to have water troughs set back 20m from watercourses.

In addition to all the above measures, nitrates rules request all derogation farmers to take at least 20 grass measurements/year. No ploughing of grassland after May 31 is allowed on derogation farms.

50% of slurry should be applied before June 15, and fertiliser accounts are compulsory.

Hedge cutting measures must also be adhered to. Two new measures for derogation farms implemented this year is: no spreading of manure after August 1 prior to reseeding; and land over 30km from the farm will be restricted to 170kg N/ha.