Thinking about this made me remember something and you will like it Pete as it was a subsidy fiddle
before SFP we were paid for cattle and sheep by headage and the arable farmers were paid by the acre of crops at a different rate for different crops
A chap I done some work for had very marginal arable land so he started growing linseed as it attracted one of the biggest payments around £250/acre IIRC first couple years he ploughed and planted it in the spring and under-sowed it with grass only in the first year did he combine any linseed and then didn't get much we would cut the grass early in the spring and make silage the put the linseed and grass in then after the first year just top in in the autumn
then he thought of a way to save money and started just direct drilling the linseed into the grass after it had been cut, I drilled it about half rate seed and the cheapest seed he could find, most likely only cost about 25/30 quid an acre per year to do the job and he had the payment and the silage
before SFP we were paid for cattle and sheep by headage and the arable farmers were paid by the acre of crops at a different rate for different crops
A chap I done some work for had very marginal arable land so he started growing linseed as it attracted one of the biggest payments around £250/acre IIRC first couple years he ploughed and planted it in the spring and under-sowed it with grass only in the first year did he combine any linseed and then didn't get much we would cut the grass early in the spring and make silage the put the linseed and grass in then after the first year just top in in the autumn
then he thought of a way to save money and started just direct drilling the linseed into the grass after it had been cut, I drilled it about half rate seed and the cheapest seed he could find, most likely only cost about 25/30 quid an acre per year to do the job and he had the payment and the silage