Building resilience to climate change: The Impact of Organic Mulch Dose and Type on Soil and Crop Performance

This dataset contains soil and plant measurements collected during three consecutive field experiments (2023–2025) conducted at the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO) in Merelbeke-Melle, Belgium. These experiments examined how different organic mulch doses (6 and 12 cm grass-clover) and different organic mulch types (grass, grass–clover, miscanthus, and woodchips) affect soil temperature, soil moisture, soil microbiome, nitrogen cycling, crop development, and crop yield under a temperate maritime climate. In the first growing season of each experiment, the effects of the different mulching treatments were evaluated on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) growth, tuber yield, soil temperature, soil water tension, soil microbiome and plant-available nitrogen. In the second year of experiments 1 and 2, the yields of maize (Zea mays L.) and spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) were measured along with plant-available nitrogen. The study period covers contrasting weather conditions, with a dry early summer growing season in 2023, a wet summer growing season in 2024, and a dry summer growing season in 2025. The dataset includes: Hourly soil temperature at 15 and 35 cm depth Hourly soil matric potential at 15 and 35 cm depth Soil mineral nitrogen from 0–30 cm, 30–60 cm, 60–90 cm depth Total nitrogen in crop Microbial community composition (PLFA-based fungal and bacterial abundance) from 0-10cm depth Leaf Area Index (LAI) measurements throughout the potato growing season Potato tuber yield for all experiments Maize and wheat yield for experiments 1 and 2, respectively Mulch characteristics, including dose, dry matter content, carbon content, total nitrogen, C:N ratio, fiber fractions Soil characteristics, including pH-KCl, plant available nutrients and carbon content The dataset's structure is explained in the README.md.