Commission Implementing Decision of 3 November 2011 on granting a derogation requested by Italy with regard to the Regions of Emilia Romagna, Lombardia, Piemonte and Veneto pursuant to Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (notified under document C(2011) 7770) (Only the Italian text is authentic) (2011/721/EU)

Article 2 Definitions

For the purpose of this Decision, the following definitions shall apply:

(a)

‘farms’ means agricultural holdings with or without livestock rearing;

(b)

‘parcel’ means an individual field or a group of fields, homogeneous regarding cropping, soil type and fertilisation practices;

(c)

‘grassland’ means permanent or temporary grassland (generally temporary lies less than 4 years);

(d)

‘late maturing maize’ means maize class FAO 600-700, planted from mid March to the beginning of April, with a growing cycle of at least 145-150 days;

(e)

‘maize or sorghum followed by winter herbage’ means medium-late or early maturing maize or sorghum followed by winter herbage, such as Italian ryegrass, barley, triticale or winter rye;

(f)

‘winter cereal followed by summer herbage’ means winter wheat, winter barley or triticale, followed by summer herbage, such as maize, sorghum, Setaria or Panicum sp.;

(g)

‘crops with high nitrogen demand and long growing season’ means grassland, late maturing maize, maize or sorghum followed by winter herbage and winter cereal followed by summer herbage;

(h)

‘cattle manure’ means livestock manure excreted by cattle, including during grazing or in processed form;

(i)

‘manure treatment’ means the processing of pig manure into two fractions, a solid fraction and a liquid fraction, performed in order to improve land application and enhance nitrogen and phosphorus recovery;

(j)

‘treated manure’ means the liquid fraction resulting from pig manure treatment, with a minimum nitrogen to phosphate ratio (N/P₂O₅) of 2,5;

(k)

‘treated manure with nitrogen removal’ means treated manure with a nitrogen content of less than 30 % compared to nitrogen content of the raw pig manure;

(l)

‘soils with low Organic Matter content’ means soils with organic carbon content lower than 2 % in the top 30 centimetres of soil;

(m)

‘non-saline and low salinity soils’ means those soils with electrical conductivity on saturated soil paste extract ECe < 4 mS/cm or electrical conductivity on aqueous extract with 1:2 soil/water ratio EC 1:2 < 1 ms/cm, or areas defined as certainly not affected by risk of salinisation, as indicated on the soil map defined at regional level;

(n)

‘nitrogen use efficiency’ means the percentage of total nitrogen applied in livestock manure form which is available to crops in the year of application.