Long-term experiment on soil tillage, rotation and irrigation (V4)

The long-term experiment on soil tillage, rotation and irrigation (V4) started in the year 2000. It is characterized by several experimental cycles with different cropping system comparisons. Soil tillage is the consistent factor since the start of the experiment. Crop rotation and irrigation were adjusted according to the research questions. Cycle 1 (2000-2006) investigated the potential of reducing soil tillage by comparing two cropping systems, one with and one without ploughing with different crops per system. Cycle 2 (2007-2018) investigated the potential to produce arable crops for biomass by comparing eight cropping systems. The factors were crop rotation, i) sole cropped maize every year and ii) 4-year rotation with one crop per year with maize-winter rye/sorghum-winter triticale-alfalfa clover grass mixture (all harvested for green biomass); soil tillage (ploughing and no-tillage); irrigation (rainfed and irrigated). Cycle 3 (2019-2023) investigated the potential of diversification comparing 16 cropping systems. The factors were rotation with all crops present every year (fully phased) with i) sole cropped maize, ii) sole cropped soybean, iii) maize-soybean sequence, and iv) maize-soybean-wheat-alfalfa clover grass mixture sequence); soil tillage (ploughing and reduced tillage); irrigation (rainfed and irrigated). The experimental cycles can be analyzed separately for specific research questions and for calibrating/validating models, and the long term effects of soil tillage, rotation and irrigation can be analyzed. This table contains the index of all tables forming this data collection.

Related datasets and supporting articles are listed in the metadata element 'Related Identifier'.
Weather data of the site can be found here: https://doi.org/10.4228/zalf-8mqs-9382.
Dataset version 1.0