# Commission Decision of 5 April 2005 concerning a request for derogation under point 2(b) of Annex III to and Article 9 of Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (notified under document number C(2005) 1032) (Only the Danish text is authentic) (2005/294/EC), Article 5: Application of manure and other fertilisers

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

The amount of livestock manure applied to the land each year on cattle farms, including by the animals themselves, shall not exceed the amount of manure containing 230 kg of nitrogen, under the following conditions:
(a) the total nitrogen inputs must comply with the nutrient demand of the considered crop and the supply from the soil, the fertilisation rate being fixed 10 % under optimal economic level;
(b) a fertilisation plan and account must be kept for each farm. A plan describing the crop rotation and covering the period 1 August to 31 March the following year must be available to the authorities by 1 September at the latest. By 21 April such plans covering the whole of the period must be completed with information on expected application of manure and nitrogen fertilisers and must be available to the authorities. Crop rotation plans must specify grass, grass catch crops or beet and other crops being undersown by grass. Fertilisation plans must include the estimated need for nitrogen and phosphorous application, and nitrogen application shall be fixed 10 % below the economic optimum. It also must specify the nature of fertiliser to be used (e.g. livestock manure, waste products, chemical fertiliser) and contain a sketch map indicating location of individual fields. Plans must be revised no later than seven days following any changes in agricultural practices to ensure consistency between plans and actual agricultural practices. A fertilisation account must be annually submitted to the competent authority. These regulations must be encompassed in statutory orders;
(c) each cattle farm must submit, together with its annual application, the fertilisation account and accept that they can be subject to random control;
(d) periodic nitrogen and phosphorous analysis in soil will be done by each cattle farmer who is granted derogation for accurate fertilisation (at least every three years per 5 ha of land);
(e) no manure will be spread in the autumn before a grass cultivation, and the ploughing will be followed by a high nitrogen demanding crop.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2005/294/article/5 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2005-294/article-5
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.