The final date for grazing traditional hay meadows under GLAS was Saturday 15 April. Grazing cannot take place until after the meadow is mown annually, which must be after 1 July.

The maximum chemical nitrogen is 40kg per hectare per year. This is the equivalent of 4.4 bags of 18:6:12 per hectare or 1.8 bags per acre, or, if applying CAN, it is the equivalent of just shy of three bags per hectare or 1.2 bags per acre.

Conservation of solitary bees (sand)

Participants in tranche three of GLAS who have selected the option of conservation of solitary bees using sand have until 31 May 2017 to put the bee habitat(s) in place.

Habitats cannot be placed side by side and are constructed by placing 1t of builders’ sand in a mound in a field or LPIS parcel and fencing off to prevent livestock access. Receipts must be retained to show the volume of sand purchased. Bee habitats must also be strimmed annually to prevent growing vegetation from shading out the area and pesticides cannot be applied to the habitat to control the vegetation.

Empty containers

The Department’s and EPA’s advice for dealing with used pesticide containers is to triple-rinse containers after use, while also washing lids.

Empty containers should be punctured to avoid improper reuse. Used containers should be stored in a recycling bag, which can be sourced in many co-ops, or brought directly to an authorised bring centre. The locations of these can be found at www.farmplastics.ie.

There are now also more collection points being organised for collection of used silage plastic.

Possession of a six-digit label code will greatly reduce the cost of delivery to collection points or farm collection. The Irish Farm Film Producers Group Ltd lists 2017 prices as €40 for 0.5t (250 wraps or three covers) of plastic collected with a code, rising to €100 without a code. The respective prices for plastic delivered is €15 with a code and €85 without.