Hot on the heels of BPS applications, a range of grants are available to farmers and land managers within the River Stour catchment who adopt practices that reduce phosphorus inputs to farmland in the Middle Stour and Blackmore Vale areas.
Designed to prevent soil erosion and buffer watercourses from run-off, the grants can be used for:
• Growing cover crops after maize
• Under sowing grass into maize
• Growing cover crops after combinable crops
• Fencing to exclude livestock from watercourses
• Establishing new or wider buffer strips
• Arable reversion to zero-input grass
• Arable reversion to low/medium-input grass
• Arable reversion to three-year legume fallow

Additionally, within a slightly wider area, farmers and land managers can submit expressions of interest for funding to:
• Create leaky ponds
• Construct farm wetlands to treat field run-off and ditch/drain flow
• Establish new hedgerows
• Plant trees and establish small-scale woodland
Will Cairns, Graduate Surveyor in Symonds & Sampson’s Sturminster Newton office can provide further information on the funding criteria ahead of a closing date for applications on May 23, 2022.
Contact him on 01258 472244 or at wcairns@symondsandsampson.co.uk.