GRH8Supplement: Haymaking (late cut)

What it actually is

The late-cut sibling of the haymaking supplement GRH7, and like it a supplement rather than a standalone action: it rides on land entered into CLIG3, manage grassland with very low nutrient inputs, in the same application. The differences are the ones that matter to a plant setting seed: the closed spell before harvest is at least 9 weeks rather than 8, and the cut typically comes no earlier than mid-July, so that, in GOV.UK's words, a crop of herb-rich hay is made, with wildflowers and grasses allowed to flower and set seed. The rest matches its sibling: an uncut margin around at least half the edge of the entered area at harvest, the crop field-dried and turned at least once, carried off wrapped or unwrapped, and the aftermath managed by grazing or a second cut. The stated aim adds late-flowering plants and nesting time for wading birds to the meadow-plant, pollinator, water and landscape aims the pair share.

Source: GOV.UK, GRH8 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 and stacks on top of the base action's own payment on the same hectares. Multiplied out, supplement alone:

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 6 hectares is an illustration; the base action's payment is on the CLIG3 page.

Is it worth it on your ground?

The sums are GRH7's, pushed further in both directions. The later cut costs more feed value: mid-July grass is stemmier and lower in protein again than late June's, and the crop is more nearly bedding-and-bulk than dairy fodder. The weather risk runs later into the summer with it. Against that stands the higher supplement rate, the same sellable bales, the same grazed aftermath, and a field that is more meadow at the end of three years than the earlier cut leaves it. The choice between the two supplements is the honest fork: if the hay itself matters to your system, GRH7's earlier window protects more of its value; if the field's flora is the point and the hay is a by-product, this is the version built for it. That is a system decision, not one this page can make.

Source: the payment rates at the top of this page and the GRH7 page; requirements from GOV.UK, GRH8 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The judgements are Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

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.

The evidence file is the one shared with GRH7, because the assessed practice is the same: delaying the mowing date. In brief, since the sibling page carries the full account: Conservation Evidence grade delaying mowing or first grazing on grassland as Likely to be beneficial on 15 studies, scored 60 per cent effectiveness and 45 per cent certainty in the Farmland Conservation synopsis, and delay haying or mowing as Likely to be beneficial on 5 studies, 45 per cent effectiveness, 52 per cent certainty and 0 harms in the Bird Conservation synopsis. The reported benefits include higher plant species richness, more flower-visiting insects, increased breeding wader densities, skylark productivity, corncrake recovery in reviews of UK schemes, and less destruction of nests by machinery in late-cut fields; the counterweight is six studies finding no clear or mixed effects and a Dutch paired comparison finding no abundance difference against controls. If anything in that file favours one sibling over the other, it is this one: the later the cut, the longer the flowering, seed-set and nesting the studies were measuring the benefit of, and the machinery finding transfers whole.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 131, Farmland Conservation synopsis, and action 223, Bird Conservation synopsis, both checked 23/08/2026, including the note that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. The sibling comparison is Tilth's own reading.

What you actually have to do

Hold the sward ungrazed and uncut for a continuous period of at least 9 weeks in spring and summer before harvest. Cut typically no earlier than mid-July, so the sward has flowered and set seed. Leave an uncut margin around at least half the edge of the entered area when you harvest. Field-dry the crop, turning it at least once, then carry it, wrapped or unwrapped. Manage the aftermath by grazing or a second cut, which GOV.UK gives as the usual pattern, to keep the base action's aim. Rotational or static, with the base action.

Source: GOV.UK, GRH8 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.

Nine continuous weeks, placed by you. As with the sibling, the closed spell is unbroken and its start date is your lever. Count back from a realistic mid-July cut and the window swallows most of May onwards; the diary date that opens it is the one compliance will lean on.

Mid-July hay is a different commodity. Price it as what it is, seedy meadow hay, bedding and bulk for the horse and smallholder market, not dairy fodder, and the budget stays honest. The supplement's premium over GRH7 exists precisely because the crop is worth less.

Later cut, later weather. July field-drying has kinder sun and less of it between the showers. The turning requirement is the practical minimum; the risk of a flattened, blackened crop in a wet spell is the structural cost, as on the sibling page, and it lands in fewer, later windows here.

The pair are alternatives, not a stack. A field carries one haymaking supplement, on top of CLIG3, in one application. Choose by what the field is for.

The base action still rules underneath, with one substitution. CLIG3's nutrient limits and management run on regardless. The one that does not: GOV.UK says this supplement's minimum 9 week period replaces CLIG3's minimum 7 week period on the area entered into the supplement, so there is one closed spell to plan, not two.

Keeping the evidence

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

The same date-driven record as GRH7: window opened, cut, turned, carried, each a diary line, with photographs of the sward in flower and seed, the uncut margin standing after harvest, and the bales going. A photograph of the meadow in full July flower is also, not incidentally, the best advert the field will ever produce for what the supplement bought.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, GRH8 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Which fields can wait until mid-July, what seedy hay fetches where you are, and whether the flora repays the feed value forgone: your forage budget and your own eyes on the sward, over seasons. The dates and photographs that prove the supplement are the ones a field diary collects as you go, which is what Tilth is. Request an invite.