I always think this is a wonderful season in the farming calendar when the countryside starts to burst into life following the winter period.
The site of gambolling lambs and young calves tearing about lush green paddocks is always something I look forward to.
However lambing, calving, sowing and planting all bring with it concerns.
The concerns being, that young livestock survive and thrive and weather is kind for all farming operations.
This spring, however, presents an additional concern in the form of the changes to the CAP.
The introduction of the Basic Payment Scheme and the farcical situation we find ourselves in, as producers, is nothing short of ridiculous.
In 2004, the year ahead of the last CAP reform, producers were informed of the scheme rules and the likely payments they would receive in July 2004.
By November 2004, all producers were awarded their historic entitlement and could make informed decisions about their farming policy for the year ahead.
Compare and contrast we still do not have any firm legislation and continue to work from a set of guidelines.
What is worse IACS forms are now being completed and we are still not certain what payment rates will apply to the three regions.
The vast majority of producers will see their Single Farm Payment back by some 20%.
There will be some winners along the way but the vast majority of producers will see a drop in income through subsidies.
Most farmers have now carried out their Greening plans in preparation for the start of spring work.
As a word of warning, please be aware that any ongoing five-year Land Management Option (LMO) commitments need to be considered when completing a Greening plan.
If commitments to any grass margins, wild bird seed or management of rush pasture was adopted under the LMO, then these commitments may still have some years to run.
This has caused a headache for a number of clients who thought their Greening had been satisfied only to realise that they have now to make further commitments.
There is no doubt that the simplest way to fulfil the Greening requirements is to put land in fallow.
Fallow has the added advantage that you can take entry to the land on July 16 which in certain circumstances could be advantageous.
This may offer the opportunity to sow down a forage crop for winter grazing or in fact allowing entry to the land for other purposes.
That said, there are a lot of clever uses of field margins and buffer zones which can be adopted.
The important message here is that in the last five to 10 years our field margins have been moved closer and closer to the crop where now we can take the field margin right back to the hedge or beyond.
Turning to the online Rural Payments system, this has received some negative press over the last week.
Despite the new online form being more awkward than the last, there are still sufficient benefits of the online form than that compared to filling out paper forms.
That said, the online portal needs to be available and is down as I write this column.
While I do hope the Scottish Government do not follow Defra into reverting to paper forms I do hope they extend the deadline by a month given that the EU have made this available to all member states.
This will allow for any shortcomings in the online system.
Care should be taken when using some of the functions on the online system.
For example, when pressing the LFAAS button on the field data sheets this can automatically untick itself if you tick it directly following the entry of the declaration area.
Prior to confirming the field, please ensure you check all the details for the field including a check that the LFAAS box remains ticked.
There has also been some comment regarding the lack of ability to print out the form.
While it is not ideal, the individual field data sheets and the summary sheets can all be printed by using the right hand button on your computer mouse and then selecting print.
Although the online system is not perfect at least we still have the ability to submit Single Application Forms online.
One only hopes that the draft legislation does not differ greatly to the finalised legislation.
This is the overriding concern within producers that something they are doing now will come back to haunt them at a later date.
* Ian Hope is a partner with CKD Galbraith, based in the Perth office.