Gordon Rennie reports from the Scottish Society for Crop Research winter potato meeting earlier in the month.

harvest to help prevent run off. He was running out of patience and had his own personal suggestion for the audience to consider.

Under existing legalisation farmers are obliged to be in compliance with General Binding Rule (GBR) 20, which states land must be cultivated in a way that minimises the risk of pollution to the water environment, including as a result of soil erosion.

However, this is subjective and hard to enforce so Wull put it out there that there should be new rules that farmers would find easier to follow. Also SEPA would find it easier to prosecute, should these be broken.

At present, livestock farmers must have a Risk Assessment for Manures and Slurries known as a RAMS map. This gives a clear guidance to farmers and contractors on how to achieve best practice when spreading manures and slurries.

For example, where there is a red zone it means no spreading at any time. Orange is high risk, yellow is moderate risk and green areas pose no risk.

Wull proposed a similar system for arable farmers and this could be called a RASE map, Risk Assessment for Soil Erosion. This map would take into account soil type, cropping, cultivations, field drainage, slope and proximity to watercourses.

There also needs to be other mitigation measures such as the minimum size of buffer strips as it is clear that on some situations these must be much bigger than two metres from the top of a water course. And the same traffic light system as used for a RAMS map. Red being a nogo zone on each farm.

In the question and answer session Hamish Coutts pointed out that supermarkets often demand fresh vegetables to be harvested on schedules that may force farmers to harvest some crops regardless of weather.

Wull gave an example of a member of the public reporting a farmer who was harvesting swedes on December 27 last year, despite deep ruts and heavy rain leading to soil being washed onto the public road. Wull spoke to the farmer to point out there was no mitigation measures taking place such as grubbing the field and making better use of different access points to the field.

Wull

Wull’s concluded with Law,‘Soil, nutrients