CLIG3Manage grassland with very low nutrient inputs

What it actually is

You run the entered grassland on very low nutrient inputs and keep it managed, grazed with livestock or cut, so that flowering grasses and wildflowers come through from late spring, plants are left to set seed, and by autumn the sward carries a mix of heights with some tussocky grass. The input cap is hard: no more than 12 tonnes per hectare of cattle farmyard manure a year, or the equivalent available nutrients from other fertilisers or organic manures, and no digestate or industrial by-products at all. No ploughing, cultivating or re-seeding, no new drainage works, nothing mechanical during the season that would disturb breeding birds, and no pesticides beyond herbicide spot treatment of injurious weeds, invasives, nettles or bracken.

The sward is kept intact through the year, bare ground minimised, compaction and poaching prevented, with supplementary feeding allowed only where it does not cause poaching. Where the ground is cut for hay or haylage, there is a minimum 7 week rest with no grazing and no cutting during spring or summer before the harvest, uncut margins are left around the edges, and the aftermath is managed towards the aim. Grassland already run this way can come in, provided it is not funded under another scheme.

GOV.UK's stated aim is a sward with flowering grasses and wildflowers through late spring and summer, plants left to seed, varied heights and tussocky grass by autumn, supporting invertebrates, sheltering and feeding farmland birds, helping integrated pest management near cropped ground, and keeping nutrients out of surface water runoff.

The action is static, staying on the same land throughout, and unlike the corners and winter bird food actions it is not one of the limited area actions, so it does not draw on the 25 per cent ceiling.

Source: GOV.UK, CLIG3 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

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 10 hectares is an illustration. The action page also lists four supplements that can sit on top for haymaking, late cuts, lenient grazing and native breeds, GRH7, GRH8, GRH10 and SPM3, each with its own rate and rules.

Is it worth it on your ground?

No seed and no new operations, so the sum is the value of what the cap takes away, and it lands very differently on different ground.

Ground already run low input finds it cheapest. The action page allows existing low-input grassland in, and for the permanent pasture that gets a bit of muck and nothing else, banks, wet fields, the away ground, the cap changes little or nothing and the payment is close to clean money. The main new cost on such ground is discipline: the intact sward and no-poaching requirements through a wet winter, and the 7 week rest before any forage cut.

Fertilised ground pays for it in grass. Where the entered land currently gets bag nitrogen and gives silage in return, the cap costs real yield, and the value of that grass on your farm, bought feed displaced or stock carried, is the number to set against the payment. On productive dairy or finishing ground that number wins comfortably, which is fine, because that is not the ground this action is for.

The muck allowance matters more than it looks. Twelve tonnes of cattle FYM a hectare, or the nutrient equivalent, is not nothing, it lets the ground stay in the muck round and offsets some of what hay cuts remove, which the page's own advice notes. A farm choosing between this and total abstinence should read the cap as room to work in, not a prohibition.

This reasoning is Tilth's own and adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. The grass value is your own figure.

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.

Three Conservation Evidence assessments bracket this action, and the fit is good: the first assesses reduced management intensity on permanent grassland as a package, lower inputs and gentler grazing and cutting together, which is what CLIG3 is; the second isolates the input reduction; the third, from the Bird Conservation synopsis, isolates the grazing side and judges it on birds alone.

The graded assessments. 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. Effectiveness scores only the size and direction of the reported effects, and they say themselves it does not consider the quantity or quality of the studies. Certainty is the separate score for how many studies there are, how well built they are and how much ground they cover.

Source: Conservation Evidence, actions 69 and 694, Farmland Conservation synopsis, and action 220, Bird Conservation synopsis, all checked 23/08/2026. Cite the first two as Dicks et al. (2020), Farmland Conservation, pages 283 to 321, and the third as Williams et al. (2020), Bird Conservation, pages 137 to 281, both in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers.

The first row is worth a moment, because it shows how the scoring works. A 100 per cent effectiveness score with a category one rung below the top is the panel saying the reported effects ran strongly the right way, but the certainty, 60 per cent, was not high enough to call it Beneficial outright. High promise, moderate proof.

What the studies found, both ways. For the package, 22 of 32 individual studies from six European countries found benefits to some or all wildlife groups: eleven to plants, sixteen to some or all invertebrates, five to some or all birds. In the Norfolk Broads grazing marshes, fields in the scheme held 14 to 31 plant species against 10 to 16 outside it, with diversity higher where nitrogen stayed under 125 kg per hectare and stocking under 1.5 livestock units. Against that, 21 studies found no clear effect on some or all groups, and five found negatives: some plant species lost under extensive management, more invertebrates under intensive management in two comparisons, and fewer wading birds on reduced-intensity grassland in one.

For the inputs alone, six studies found stopping fertiliser increased plant species richness, slowed species loss or attracted more invertebrates, and two controlled trials found fertiliser reduced plant richness, with effects still visible 16 years after applications stopped. Four studies found no clear or rapid effect, and the word rapid is doing work: in the long Dutch trial, species counts changed gradually over 16 years of hay cutting without fertiliser, not in a season or three.

For the grazing side judged on birds, nine studies found increases in some species or greater use of reduced-grazing fields, five found no difference, and one paired study found black grouse increasing at reduced-grazing sites while large areas of reduced grazing held lower densities of females. One British trial found some bird groups preferred grassland kept short in winter and others preferred it long, whatever the frequency and timing of the mowing that simulated the grazing.

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, actions 69, 694 and 220, key messages and supporting evidence from individual studies, all checked 23/08/2026.

What we have not found. Nothing measuring CLIG3 itself, or the 12 tonne muck cap as a threshold. Nothing on the 7 week rest or the uncut margins. And, tellingly, almost nothing that moved on the timescale of this agreement, which the reading below takes up.

What the sources say makes it work better. Time, above everything: the input findings changed over decades, and fertiliser's effects persisted 16 years after stopping, in both directions of that fact. Thresholds that echo the action's own: the Broads diversity gains sat under 125 kg of nitrogen and 1.5 livestock units per hectare. And variety rather than uniformity: the winter short-or-long finding says different birds want different swards, which is in effect the action's own varied-heights aim measured.

Source: Conservation Evidence, actions 69, 694 and 220, key messages and supporting evidence from individual studies, checked 23/08/2026.

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 direction of this evidence is as friendly as the site gets, three assessments all leaning beneficial, and the honest caution is the clock. Grassland ecology moves at the pace of decades in these studies, and this is a three year agreement. Ground that has had bag nitrogen for twenty years will not flower like the Broads marshes by year three, because the fertiliser's legacy outlasts the agreement, the 16 year persistence finding says exactly that. So enter this action as the start of a direction, not a transformation, and if the ground is already old low-input pasture, you are being paid for maintaining the very thing the studies say takes longest to build, which is the best deal on the page.

The negative findings are small but worth eyes: a few species prefer the intensive sward, waders in one study among them, and large blocks of lenient grazing suited black grouse hens less than smaller ones. None of it overturns the direction; all of it supports the action's own instinct for variety, some short, some long, some tussocky, rather than uniform neglect.

And the mandatory management is the point, not the small print. This action is not the corners action: unmanaged is non-compliant here. The sward must be grazed or cut towards the aim every year, which makes it a stock farmer's action at heart, and the beneficiary of the one thing stock farms have that arable ones do not, animals that manage grass for a living.

What you actually have to do

Keep nutrient inputs on the entered land to no more than 12 tonnes per hectare of cattle farmyard manure a year, or the equivalent available nutrients from other fertilisers or organic manures, with no digestate or industrial by-products. Graze with livestock or cut in a way that can reasonably achieve the action's aim. Do not plough, cultivate or re-seed, do not carry out drainage works, do not disturb breeding birds or nests with mechanical operations, and use no pesticides beyond herbicide spot treatment of injurious weeds, invasive species, nettles or bracken. Keep the sward intact through the year, minimise bare ground, and prevent compaction and poaching, with supplementary feeding only where it causes none. Where forage is cut, neither graze nor cut the sward for a continuous period of at least 7 weeks in spring and summer before the cut, leave uncut margins around the edges, and manage the aftermath towards the aim. Stop scrub developing on historic or archaeological features. Do this in each year of the three year duration, on the same land, since the action is static.

Source: GOV.UK, CLIG3 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

The advice, as advice rather than requirement: keep inputs at their current low level or remove them entirely; use well rotted muck to replace what hay takes off; start grazing around 10 to 12 cm of average sward, aim for about 5 cm average with variation, and pull stock when it falls below that, with 8 cm or more and a longer summer sward for more wildlife; vary cutting dates and heights, take cuttings off where possible or fine-chop and spread them thin; cut forage from late June in the lowlands or mid July upland, which are GOV.UK's own suggested timings, checking for nesting birds first; and protect the ground, stock off in the wet, feeders moved about, heavier stock off for winter, feed scattered rather than heaped.

Source: GOV.UK, CLIG3 action page, advice sections, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go, and what rules it out

Temporary grassland under TG01 and improved or low input permanent grassland under PG01, below the moorland line. SSSIs need Natural England's consent first, and land with historic or archaeological features needs its HEFER, with scrub kept off the features. The action can sit alongside the corners action CIGL1 on different areas, and holders of the SFI24 species-rich grassland action GRH6 can run this on other ground. It is static, and it is not a limited area action, so hectares here do not draw on the 25 per cent ceiling the corners and winter bird food actions share.

Source: GOV.UK, CLIG3 action page, 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.

"Or equivalent available nutrients" is a sum, not a vibe. The cap is written as 12 tonnes of cattle muck or its nutrient equivalent, which means anything else you apply needs converting to available nutrients to prove it sits under the line. If a FACTS adviser does your nutrient planning, put these fields on their list; if not, the standard book values for manures are where the arithmetic starts, and it wants writing down, not estimating in the yard.

No digestate is absolute. Farms taking digestate as their muck round will find these fields simply out of that rotation, whatever the nutrient arithmetic says. Worth checking before entry, not after the tanker is booked.

The 7 week rest runs backwards from the mower, and it stops the stock too. Count back from the intended cutting date: seven continuous weeks in spring and summer with the ground neither cut nor grazed. A late June cut means nothing cut and no stock on that ground from early May, which on two-cut ground with aftermath grazing is a system change, not a date tweak. Where the haymaking supplement GRH7 or GRH8 sits on the same area, GOV.UK says its minimum 8 or 9 week period replaces this 7 week one, so there is one closed spell to plan there, not two.

Winter is where the intact sward is won or lost. Poaching and compaction are named prohibitions, and a wet January with cattle on is how a compliant field stops being one. The advice already says it: stock off in the wet, heavy stock off for winter, feed scattered. Whoever does your winter feeding needs to know these fields are different.

Static means the re-seed is off the table for three years. No ploughing, no cultivating, no re-seeding, same ground throughout. The field pencilled in for a sward renewal next spring is the wrong field.

The supplements are worth a look before you finalise. Haymaking, late cuts, lenient grazing and native breeds each carry their own payment on top, and a farm doing this action may already qualify for one or two of them nearly by accident. Check their pages against what you actually do.

Keeping the evidence

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

GOV.UK's examples are field operation records at parcel level with invoices, and photographs or other documentation.

The record with teeth here is the nutrient one: what went on each entered field, when, and the arithmetic showing it sits under the cap, because that is the requirement someone might one day ask about. Alongside it, the grazing and cutting record, stock on and off dates, cutting dates with the 7 week rest visible in them, and a photograph or two a year showing the sward doing what the aim describes, flowering in June, varied and tussocky in October.

Tilth records applications, grazing moves and cutting against each field with dates, runs your nutrient records in the same place as your NVZ figures, and takes photographs against the parcel, so the cap arithmetic, the rest periods and the sward pictures sit together.

The part only your own ground can answer

Which fields are already halfway there. The best candidates for this action are grass the fertiliser rarely reaches and the stock lightly use, and every farm knows those fields without quite having a list of them. Your application records and stocking history are that list. Tilth holds both, field by field, which is what turns a walk round the farm into an entry decision. Request an invite.