Picken attacks limits on cereal fertilisers

Scottish cereal growers are being held back by outdated and unjustified restrictions on the levels of fertiliser they are allowed to apply to crops, according to a newly appointed vice-president of NFU Scotland.

John Picken who has just completed five years as chairman of the union's combinable crops committee, raised the issue with the cabinet secretary at the annual meeting in St Andrews earlier this week.

He is now asking when Scotland will be allowed to use fertiliser applications that were more appropriate to the grain and grass varieties being grown.

Cereal and grass yields in this country had levelled out in the past decade while areas without limits on the levels of nitrogen that can be applied see the tonnages produced continuing to rise.

Picken said yesterday that the problem was that under strict rules on nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZs), the maximum amount of nitrogen that can be applied in crops is 220 kilos per hectare, well under the levels that modern varieties needed.

He claimed that the maximum levels of fertiliser that that can be applied has been set by recommendations within a document called RB 209 and this does have been set do not allow for the unique circumstances found in Scotland.

"We may have a slower start to spring growth but we end up with longer growing days than any part of mainland Europe. Our growing crops can be restricted when they most need all the nutrients they can get."

Then having stunted the crop at a critical stage, Picken said the plants were unable thereafter to produce top yields.

He said he wanted the Scottish Government to ask Europe for a change in the maximum limits of fertiliser so that they more closely reflected the needs of the growing crop in this northern corner of the continent. "We are dealing with a regulation that believes one size fits all. In this case, it does not," he added.

He said there was plenty of scientific and practical evidence in Scotland to back the case for change.

While this attack was on the restrictive nature of NVZ legislation, he said that one of his vice-presidential priorities was other bureaucracy that prevents Scottish agriculture reaching its full potential.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: "NVZs are necessary to protect human health and living resources from pollution to the water environment caused by nitrate from agricultural sources.

"SEPA monitors nitrate concentrations in surface and ground waters on behalf of the Scottish Government and our officials are responsible for assessing land managers' compliance with these regulations.

"NVZ designations are reviewed every four years, the last review having taken place in 2009. SEPA is carrying out in-depth studies of four NVZ designated areas for the next review in 2013."