AHW10Low input harvested cereal crop

What it actually is

A cereal crop drilled thin. You establish an autumn or spring cereal, not maize, in strips or plots at a reduced seed rate, you keep the spray programme within a short permitted list, and then you harvest it.

GOV.UK's stated aim is a low input, open-structured cereal crop growing in strips or plots during the spring and summer months until it is harvested. The page sets that in the context of allowing wildflowers to grow within the crop, summer foraging for declining farmland birds, and habitat for skylarks, farmland wildlife and pollinators.

You may undersow a seed mix, and you may use a blend or mix of cereals, provided the aim can still reasonably be expected to be achieved.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW10 action page, checked 04/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page. Multiplied out:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date. The 5 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: why the usual comparison does not work here. On every other action on this site the question is what the payment is worth against the crop you gave up. Here you do not give the crop up. You harvest it and you sell it. So comparing the rate against a whole gross margin would overstate the case badly, and we are not going to do it.

What the payment has to cover is the shortfall: the yield you lose to a reduced seed rate and a restricted spray list, less whatever you save on seed and sprays by not applying them.

Step two: what a tonne is worth. The Farm Business Survey's crop figures for England, non-organic, in the 2023/24 crop year. Variable costs have already been taken off the gross margins, so there is nothing further to deduct from them.

Source: Farm Business Survey, Crop Production in England 2023/24, Rural Business Research, England, non-organic, 2023/24 column, checked 02/08/2026. The winter wheat figures come from a sample of 572 farms.

Step three: how much yield the payment buys. At those prices, this is what the rate is worth in tonnes, and what that is as a share of the crop.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page divided by the crop prices in step two, from the Farm Business Survey, Crop Production in England 2023/24, checked 02/08/2026. The share column is that figure against the yields in the same table.

So on wheat, the action pays as long as drilling thin and spraying within the permitted list costs you less than about a fifth of the crop. The saved seed and the sprays you do not apply sit on top of that, in your favour, and both are yours to price.

Three things to set against those figures. What follows is Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

We have not found a published figure for the yield penalty. That is the number this whole page turns on, and we are not going to invent it, because it depends on the rate you drill to, the crop, the season and what your weed burden does when the spray list gets short. The table above is deliberately the other way round: rather than guess the penalty and tell you the answer, it tells you what penalty the payment covers, and leaves the guess where it belongs.

It is one year of prices, and not a strong one. The same report's 2022/23 column put winter wheat's gross margin at £1,570 a hectare against the £988 above for 2023/24. Prices move, and when grain is dearer a fixed payment buys fewer tonnes, so the tonnage column above gets smaller in exactly the years you would least want it to.

The survey reports one winter wheat figure, not first and second wheat separately. It matters less here than on the actions that take ground out, because the comparison is a shortfall rather than a whole margin, but the same caution applies to any figure you take off that table.

Where that leaves it. This is the action to look at if the reason you have not entered any of the others is that you do not want ground out of production. The crop stays, the combine still goes through it, and the payment is set against a yield penalty rather than against a whole margin. Whether it pays comes down to a single number that nobody can publish for you, and the useful form of the question is not whether the rate at the top of this page sounds like a lot, but "would drilling this strip thin, and leaving those sprays off, cost me more than 1.76 tonnes of wheat".

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. We have named every source and given the date we checked it. What it means for your ground is your decision.

This is the thinnest evidence base of any action on this site, and the fit is poor as well, so both go at the top before any numbers.

The closest thing Conservation Evidence assess is an action called Plant cereals in wide-spaced rows. That is a different way of opening a crop up. In the studies behind it the wheat was drilled at double the normal row width, 25 centimetres apart against 12.5, but at the same seed rate as the control. Same number of plants, fewer rows. AHW10 asks for a reduced seed rate, which is fewer plants. Both are trying to produce an open crop and they go about it differently, so what follows describes a neighbouring practice rather than this one, and the score below is not a score for AHW10.

The graded assessment. Conservation Evidence, based at the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, summarises the published studies behind individual conservation actions and has independent subject experts score each one. Planting cereals in wide-spaced rows comes out in their category Unknown effectiveness with limited evidence, on 5 studies, with 0 per cent for effectiveness, 18 per cent for certainty, and harms not assessed.

Two things about those numbers. Unknown effectiveness with limited evidence is a category meaning there is too little to judge on, rather than a verdict that the practice failed. And a zero for effectiveness means the effects that were reported were nil or ran against the practice, which is a different statement from saying nothing was found. The 18 per cent for certainty is the lowest we have seen on any action we have written up.

The study count needs the same treatment we gave the beetle bank page. Four of the five are reports from SAFFIE, the Sustainable Arable Farming For an Improved Environment project, which Conservation Evidence state on the page itself. So this is five reports from two pieces of work rather than five independent tests, which is what the certainty score is telling you.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 564, Plant cereals in wide-spaced rows, Farmland Conservation synopsis, checked 22/08/2026. Cite as Dicks et al. (2020), Farmland Conservation, pages 283 to 321, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers.

What the studies found, both ways. Morris and others, across 15 winter wheat fields in northern and eastern England over two seasons, found significantly fewer skylark nests on wide-spaced row fields than on control fields or on fields with undrilled patches, at 0.16 nests a hectare against 0.18 for controls and 0.31 for undrilled patches. Invertebrate abundance, beetles in particular, was significantly lower on the wide-spaced row fields, and bare ground was significantly more extensive.

Smith and Jones, across ten sites, found little effect on plant cover, species richness or arthropod abundance, with no significant difference in weed cover at 1 to 2 per cent, or in plant species richness at seven species either way. Wolf spiders were more abundant in wide-spaced rows in one year, at 0.9 individuals against 0.4, while rove beetles ran the other way at four against six. Smith and others found invertebrate abundance not significantly different from control winter wheat, at 6.0 species a pitfall trap against 6.4. Jones and Smith, across three sites over three years, found little effect on the abundance or diversity of weeds or arthropods, with weed species richness higher under wide rows at one of the three sites in one year, three species against two.

Ogilvy and others reported significant benefits to skylarks without giving the detail, and noted that skylark plots were more consistently beneficial than wide-spaced rows. The same study found a higher proportion of undesirable weed cover in wide-spaced row fields, at 4 per cent against 1.5 per cent, though a second experiment found no effect on weed diversity.

The one clear positive runs across two of the reports: nestling body condition fell in control nests over the breeding season and rose in the treatments. The authors of the last SAFFIE report suggest the value of a wide-spaced row field for skylarks lies in easier access to food already present rather than in there being more of it.

Conservation Evidence say themselves that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value, and that study size, design, reported metrics and relevance to your own situation matter more than "simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation".

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 564, key messages and supporting evidence from individual studies, checked 22/08/2026.

What we have not found. Nothing on a reduced seed rate, which is what this action actually pays for. Nothing measuring AHW10. And no published figure for the yield penalty, which is the number the money section further up this page is built around and deliberately declines to invent.

What the sources say makes it work better. Very little, and we are not going to stretch it. Two findings transfer in a limited way. Bare ground was significantly more extensive where the crop was opened up, and undesirable weed cover came out higher in one of the studies, at 4 per cent against 1.5. Both point at the same thing, which is that an open crop is an opportunity for whatever else is in the field.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 564, supporting evidence from individual studies, checked 22/08/2026.

What follows is Tilth's own reading of how those findings sit against this action, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The honest position is that we cannot tell you whether this action works, and neither can anybody else from what is published. The nearest measured practice scored zero for effectiveness on what amounts to two studies, and in one of them the treatment held fewer skylark nests and fewer beetles than the ordinary crop beside it. That is not a finding about AHW10, because AHW10 thins the crop rather than widening the rows, and nobody appears to have measured the thing this action asks for.

There is a reason the difference might matter rather than being a technicality. Keeping the seed rate and widening the rows leaves the same plant population, so the crop closes over between the rows as it grows. Thinning the whole crop leaves gaps everywhere rather than in lines. Whether that produces the open structure the GOV.UK page describes is exactly the question, and it is unanswered.

The weed findings are the part we would carry into the decision, because they line up with something already on this page. Opening the crop up produced more bare ground and, in one study, more undesirable weed cover. This action restricts you to five herbicide actives for the season. Those two facts sit next to each other, and the page already says the short herbicide list is the bigger commitment of the two the action asks for. The evidence does not contradict that.

One comparison is worth making because it is unflattering and useful. Ogilvy's team, running both treatments in the same project, said skylark plots were more consistently beneficial than wide-spaced rows. Skylark plots are AHW4 on this site, and they carry the strongest assessment of any action we have written up, Beneficial on 100 per cent effectiveness. If your reason for looking at this page is skylarks, that is where the evidence is.

What that leaves is an action with a sensible-sounding aim, an arithmetic case the page sets out clearly, and almost nothing published behind it either way. Being told that straight is more use than being given somebody's confident opinion.

What you actually have to do

Establish an autumn or spring cereal crop, not maize, in strips or plots, at a seed rate reduced to a level that can reasonably be expected to achieve the action's aim. Manage it in a way that can reasonably be expected to achieve that aim until it is harvested.

You may undersow a seed mix into the cereal crop, and you may use a blend or mix of cereals, provided the aim can still reasonably be expected to be achieved.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW10 action page, checked 04/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

You must not harvest the crop before it can reasonably be expected to achieve the action's aim, which GOV.UK puts as usually not before around mid-July. You must not apply insecticides after around mid-March until the crop is harvested. The only herbicides permitted are those containing amidosulfuron, clodinafop-propargyl, fenoxaprop-P-ethyl, pinoxaden or tri-allate.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW10 action page, checked 04/08/2026.

Where it can go

Arable land used to grow crops other than maize, registered as arable land and declared with an arable crop or a leguminous and nitrogen-fixing crop code, along with temporary grassland under TG01 and arable land lying fallow under FA01.

The action is rotational or static, so you can move it for the second and third years or keep it in the same place.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW10 action page, checked 04/08/2026.

AHW10 is not one of the ten limited area actions under SFI26, so it does not draw on the 25 per cent allowance shared by CIPM2, CAHL1, CAHL2, CAHL3, CIGL1, CIGL2, WBD3, AHW7, AHW9 and AHW11.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, section 4.5, checked 23/08/2026.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

Mid-July is 'usually', not a deadline. GOV.UK's requirement is not to harvest before the action's aim can reasonably be expected to have been achieved, and it puts that as usually not before around mid-July. That is more room than a fixed date, and it also means there is nothing to point at afterwards except what you actually did and when.

Check the list of prohibitions for what is not on it. On this action GOV.UK's list of things not to do covers harvest timing, insecticides and herbicides. Fertilisers, manures and lime are on that list for AHW9 and AHW11 and are not on it here. Anyone arriving from one of those pages may carry the assumption across, so read this page's list on its own terms.

A short herbicide list is a bigger commitment than a low seed rate. Drilling thin is a decision you make once, in the shed, and can plan for. Living with five permitted actives is a decision you live with for a whole season, and the year it bites will be the year something comes up that none of them touch. Look at the list against your own worst field rather than your average one.

The reduced seed rate is a judgement, not a number. GOV.UK asks for a rate reduced to a level that can reasonably be expected to achieve the aim, and gives no figure. Write down what rate you drilled and why, because nobody else will.

Thin crops and awkward strips are still crops you have to combine. A reduced-rate strip inside a normally drilled field ripens differently from the rest of it, and it is still a separate pass. That is time rather than money, and it does not appear in any of the tables above.

The area you enter is the area you are paid on. Strips and plots are easy to over-estimate. Measure them off the boundary rather than pacing them out.

If the parcel is an SSSI, or has historic or archaeological features on it, read the eligible land section of the action page against your own parcels. There are extra steps in that part of the page that do not apply to ordinary arable ground.

Keeping the evidence

Also Tilth's own reading. GOV.UK sets the requirements; what follows is a practical suggestion about record keeping.

GOV.UK gives field operations at land parcel level with their associated invoices, and photographs or other documentation, as its examples of evidence of what you have done.

The awkward part here is that a harvested cereal crop looks like a harvested cereal crop. Nothing about the field afterwards shows that it was drilled at a reduced rate or that a spray was left off. So the record that carries this action is the ordinary one you already keep, provided it is kept at strip level rather than at field level: the drilling record with the seed rate on it, and the spray record for that strip showing what went on and, by omission, what did not. Dated photographs through the spring and early summer are the other half, because an open crop with flowers in it is visible in a way that a seed rate is not.

Tilth keeps drilling and spray records against the strip you have drawn rather than against the whole field, so a strip inside a field has its own rate and its own programme on the record.

The part only your own ground can answer

Everything above comes down to one number that no national survey holds: what a thin, lightly sprayed crop actually yields on your ground. The table gives you the target rather than the answer, which is about 1.76 tonnes of wheat, and the only honest way to find out whether you clear it is to have the yield history for that strip and the strip beside it. Tilth keeps yields at the level you actually farm at, so a strip is comparable with the field it sits in. Request an invite.