Commission Implementing Decision of 16 May 2014 granting a derogation requested by the Netherlands pursuant to Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (notified under document C(2014) 3103) (Only the Dutch version is authentic) (2014/291/EU)

Article 6 U.K. Land cover

1. Farmers benefiting from a derogation under this Decision shall cultivate with grass 80 % or more of the acreage available for manure application on their farms.

2. Farmers benefiting from a derogation under this Decision shall moreover carry out the following measures:

(a) on sand and loess soil, grass or other crops ensuring soil coverage during the winter shall be cultivated after maize in order to reduce leaching potential;

(b) catch crops shall not be ploughed before 1 February in order to ensure permanent vegetal cover of arable area for recovering subsoil autumn losses of nitrates and limit winter losses;

(c) grass on sandy and loessial soils shall only be ploughed in spring;

(d) ploughed grass on all soil types shall be followed immediately by a crop with high nitrogen demand and fertilisation shall be based on soil analysis concerning mineral nitrogen and other parameters providing references for estimate of nitrogen release from soil organic matter mineralisation; and

(e) if crop rotation includes leguminous or other plants fixing atmospheric nitrogen, fertiliser application shall be reduced accordingly.

3. By way of derogation from point (c), grass ploughing is permitted in autumn for planting flowers bulbs.