Successful applicants will enter the scheme from 1 January 2016 and will have their contracts run for five calendar years.

Announced by Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney, the news is likely to be welcomed by many farmers, particularly new entrants into farming in 2015, who are unable to apply under the first ongoing tranche.

It will also facilitate farmers who want to defer their applications in order to adjust or split parcels on their holding under their 2015 BPS applications to optimise the annual payment that can be drawn.

While the precise date has not been fixed, the second tranche is set to open in early autumn, following the processing of applications under the first tranche. It will close before the end of the year, with the objective of starting farmers in their new GLAS contracts from 1 January 2016.

The minister also announced that he is giving additional time to commonage GLAS planners to get plans completed and submitted. The new extended date for the completion of the commonage plans will be 31 August. Farmers with commonage will still have to make sure they lodge their individual GLAS applications by 22 May.

“With more certainty as to the overall uptake, I believe the time is right to announce a second tranche for autumn,” Minister Coveney said.

“With over 21,000 applications already registered and increasing daily, I anticipate that we will approve 25,000 applications under tranche one”, he added. “With that in mind, I am looking at opening a second tranche for an additional 10,000 farmers in early autumn.”

The ability to authorise formal submission of applications is expected before the weekend. The minister advised farmers to make sure that they are happy with all aspects of their applications, including selection of key environmental actions, before telling their advisers to submit their application.

“Once the application is submitted, it cannot be amended,” the minster said.

“That’s why we have provided such a long lead period for the preparation of applications online. GLAS is a new scheme and quite different to its predecessors in many ways and I am quite frankly delighted with the response to date. We are now moving to the stage of submitting the applications that have been prepared, and everybody needs to be happy with what they selected.”