Paragraph 1 Establishment and Maintenance of a Green Cover on Rotational Set-Aside Land
A farmer shall, except as provided in sub-paragraphs (2) to (4) below, establish a green cover on all his rotational set-aside land to which this Part of this Schedule applies before the commencement of the green cover season, and shall maintain it throughout that season.
A farmer shall be exempt from the requirement in sub-paragraph (1) above where—
he satisfies the Minister that for climatic reasons it was not practicable for there to be such a green cover at the commencement of the set-aside period, in which case he shall establish a green cover as soon as reasonably possible after that time and maintain it for the remainder of the green cover season; or
a crop was in that land at 1st October prior to the commencement of the set-aside period, in which case the farmer may either—
establish and maintain a green cover on that land in accordance with the requirement in sub-paragraph (1) above; or
not sow a green cover, in which case he shall—
maintain throughout the green cover season any natural cover which develops on that land, except to the extent that a circumstance in sub-paragraph (3)(a) or sub-paragraph (4) below applies; and
prior to the end of the green cover season, carry out no operation affecting the surface of the land except for discing or shallow cultivating it.
A farmer shall be exempt from the requirement to maintain a green cover—
following the application of herbicide, where herbicide is applied to the land after 15th April in accordance with paragraph 9 below; or
following the failure of the green cover, where he satisfies the Minister that the green cover which he established failed and he could not reasonably have prevented such failure.
A farmer shall not be required to establish or maintain a green cover on a strip of set-aside land of no more than the specified width, but may instead leave such a strip as bare fallow—
where the set-aside land lies adjacent to a road or track likely to permit vehicular access to it, the strip so left is in any place where access to that land from that road or track is possible and that strip is ploughed; or
where the set-aside land lies adjacent to any crop and the strip left lies between the crop and that part of the set-aside land on which a green cover has been established,
and the specified width for the purposes of paragraph (a) of this sub-paragraph shall be 5 metres and that for paragraph (b) shall be 2 metres where the crop is a seed crop and 1 metre in the case of any other crop.