Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead has clarified some of the long-awaited greening regulations for the new CAP.
Most significantly for those choosing the fallow option as part of their Environmental Focus Area obligation, it has been decided the fallow must include the period between January 15 and July 15.
The end date matches the old set-aside rules and will be welcomed by those farmers wishing to use the fallow as an entry to oilseed rape.
Spring cereal crops undersown with grass will also now count under the EFA catch crops category. This will be seen as especially important for livestock producers with some arable area.
There is clarification on the cross compliance, or Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) rules regarding hedges and watercourses.
Farmers must not plough or apply fertiliser or pesticides (except for spot-treatment for injurious weeds) within two metres of the centre line of a hedge or the top of the bank of a watercourse or water body.
The new GAEC rules on cultivation next to hedges will only come into force for crops sown after January 1 next year.
There will also be a one-month extension to the no-cutting period for hedges during the bird nesting season, which will now run from March 1 to August 31.
Straw burning is no longer common in Scotland, but farmers will now need to meet a European requirement not to burn stubble except for plant health purposes.
Mr Lochhead also hailed a “significant reduction” in the number of new EU cross compliance requirements.
He claims that these will result in the overall number of Scottish GAEC requirements reducing from 21 to seven.
There is a temporary, one-year relaxation in the controversial requirement to grow more than one nitrogen-fixing crop in each parcel of land if it is to be regarded as part of the farm’s EFA obligation.
The need to sow two nitrogen-fixing crops will now apply from 2016 instead of next year.
Mr Lochhead also announced a short-term scientific study.
This will, alongside the views of stakeholders, inform future Scottish Government decisions on greening.
Meanwhile, a longer-term monitoring project will look at the wider impacts on the environment and agriculture.
He said: “I have listened carefully to farmers’ concerns about the practical difficulties of implementing all of these new greening measures straight away.
“As such, the requirement to grow more than one nitrogen-fixing crop if it is to count as EFA will now come into effect in 2016.
“I recognise that we are entering uncharted territory with greening, which is why I had already pushed for a full EU review of the new policy,” he added.
“Now the new commissioner designate has made it clear that simplification is at the top of his agenda, including for greening, and I will be pressing him for early action.”