Teaching and Research Station Thyrow: LTE-Field D42 – Static nutrient deficiency experiment

Further information to this location is available in the dataset Teaching and Research Station Standort Thyrow which can be found under https://doi.org/10.20387/bonares-vcth-3a25.
In 1937, the long-term field experiment D4 was set up originally as a Latin square, with eight treatments using eight replicates. The goal was to investigate how nutrient deficiencies affect soil fertility and harvest yields in sandy soils. In 1949, long-term field experiment D4 was split into two subfields: D41 and D42. Due to their different treatments, the datasets for these two subfields are available separately (further information in the field description for D41 https://doi.org/10.20387/bonares-8bdc-4844).
D42, like D41, was eight treatments using four replicates. The idea behind splitting the experiment was to answer the question: how fast could soil fertility be restored to the induced nutrient deficiency using fertilisers and lime. Starting in 1954, variations of nutrient deficiency were reimplemented, which led to the return of deficiency symptoms in the crops.
Between 1954 and 1971, the crop rotations of D41 and D42 were staggered, meaning two crops were grown in D4 at any one time (for example, while potatoes were growing in D41, spring barley was growing in D42). As with D41, silage corn was introduced into the D42 crop rotation for the first time in 1960. Thus, the crop rotation following the year 1958 was potatoes – spring barley – silage corn – spring barley. In 1971, the crop rotations of both fields were synchronised, meaning one crop was grown in both fields.
Thus, in 1971 re-fertilisation was repeated to investigate how long it would take to compensate for the nutrient deficiency. From 1971-1997, some of the treatments included a second level of nitrogen.
Since 1998, this sub-field of the nutrient deficiency experiment has been used to test the effects of differential mineral fertilization and liming on a winter rye continuous monoculture.
The harvest plots in the geodata represent the standard harvest plots, which have maintained their size since 1998. In the previous experiment before 1998, the size of these harvest plots was somewhat more variable and changed from year to year.

Related datasets are listed in the metadata element 'Related Identifier'.
Dataset version 1.0