Spring tillage decreased from 42 to 29 per cent of the total spring barley area and from 46 to 25 per cent of the area under oats between 2014 and 2016. During the same period the area with environmental aid for spring tillage within the Single Farm Payment Scheme decreased from 83 200 hectares to 15 200 hectares. The most common catch crop in the autumn of 2016 was grass, followed by oilseed radish/white radish, which were grown on 65 and 21 per cent of the total catch crop area, respectively.

Larger share of young leys on organically cultivated land

Temporary grasses from areas with organic farming have a larger proportion of the crop area that is 1 or 2 years old compared to temporary grasses from areas with conventional farming.

93 per cent of the area of organic temporary grasses was established with a seed mixture containing leguminous plants, whereas the equivalent share of area was 76 per cent in the conventional ones. This can be explained by the demand for nitrogen-fixing crops in the organic crop rotation.

Lime is applied to about three per cent of the arable land

About three per cent of the arable land was limed in 2016. The percentage has not changed since 2010. About 336 000 tonnes of lime products were applied to arable land, which equals 142 000 tonnes of CaO in total, or about 2 tonnes per hectare of limed arable land in 2016.

A more detailed description of this survey and the results for individual crops are published in the Statistical Report MI 30 SM 1703, which is available on the Statistics Sweden website, www.scb.se under Environment.