New Acres scheme

Along with studying all the options yourself, you need a good independent advisor IWT. I'm organic and ANC so had to tailor what I could do with that. The only compromise I did was put 2 ha into riprarian zone. That loses me the organic payment on those 2 ha. From above posts it looks like I'll lose ANC on it as well. Did that because the riprarian payment was high. All other tasks were only ones that would not impact other payments. I'll have a good bit of work with trees, hedging and fencing, but at least no scorecard.

Are you a farmer yourself?

Did your planner send you this? Or could you access it somewhere else?

There would want to be some acknowledgement going forward if the scoring is done late that has an impact on what is present .

+ when topping is done etc

I was in the reap last year. No topinf and scoring in August. Over run with weeds now in certain fields. Never again.

We didn't choose a scoring option in our application but from reading through the little flower booklet that came after our application was accepted there are two types of gorse. One is Western Gorse (Ulex gallii) which it is a positive indicator whilst the other is European Gorse (Ulex europaeus) which is a negative indicator. See page 59 for Western gorse and 72 for European gorse in the link which may help you identify which you have.

Edit, the link didn't work. Click on this one and see point 14.

Have gorze/furze myself and asked at info walk because type I have is negative indicator in booklet but was told its only a negative on peatlands ( as it tends to dry out ground) As long as its not growing wild out the fields shouldn't be a problem elsewhere

Is it compulsory I've never done it

Hi all

I haven't read up much on the avres scheme yet but I was wondering when do all the actions have to be done by.

Iv owl boxes ,hedges to lay, fencing along streams wall maintaining and such.

Do they all have to be done now or by the end of this year

There is different dates for actions. I think most hedging work ( laying/ planting)has to be done this winter.

If you look up.thr documentation the Dept send you the dates for tasks are on it.

If not check with Teagasc or your advisor.

Owl boxes should have been complete by July 31st.

Fencing complete by mid May I think.

I had march 24 in my head also. Talking to hedging guy and says going to be fun getting all those plants this year as nursery's weren't told in advance about it. And hedges have to be certified so not any hedging will do.

Search for Catherine Kenna, Teagasc, she's the expert.

It really depends on the hedge and how mature it is. Technically they want you to cut 2/3 of the way through the stem about 6-12'' from the ground and push it over so that the rest will not break off and provide life to the layed tree. Very hard to do with a really mature hedge. I did it last time and a land with a track machine layed them however I was lucky I did not get an inspection. If you do that you will fill an inspection for two years afterwards, but in my case it was the only real practical way of doing it

You have to interplant any gap's

As you say learn by doing is the best. A lot of videos on youtube are overcomplicated (competition ), especially the English ones with their different styles for different parts of the country. Lay thorn ( white & black) bushes and coppice fast growing species (hazel/alder etc) and whitethorns gone too big to lay.

Cut as close to ground as possible and try to have to have finished stem slightly above horizontal. If you need to lay a bigger stem to fill a gap you can tie twine ( white electric cord best) just above cut ( plenty times around) to stop it " barberchairing" ( splitting vertically up the middle).

Fair play to anyone doing some but I have to say If father heard of laying with saw he wouldn't be a happy man 🤣 Always made out cut with axe or briarhook gives best chance of bush remaining alive. ( but I do it sometimes myself in confined space or a bigger stem )