SoilClim bait-lamina test

This study was part of the SoilClim project (https://www.biodiversa.org/976) and carried out in the DOK agricultural trial in Therwil, Switzerland. The DOK trial is an agricultural long-term farming system research that is comparing biodynamic, organic and conventional farming systems, under the same 7-year crop rotation and equal ploughing depth (20 cm), for more than 40 years. The soil is a Haplic Luvisol (16% clay, 72% silt and 12% sand) on deep deposits of alluvial loess. Mean annual precipitation is 842 mm, and mean annual temperature is 10.5°C. For the current study, winter wheat fields (Triticum aestivum L. cv. “Wiwa”) under biodynamic (organic) and conventional management were used with soybean as preceding crop. In fields under organic (biodynamic) management the guidelines for ‘Demeter’ food production were followed; while fields under conventional management were managed according to the Swiss Guidelines. For more information on the types of management and inputs applied during the experiment see Kundel et al. (2020), Birkhofer et al. (2021) and Meyer et al. (2021). + Experimental design The experiment consisted of four blocks (A–D), each one containing one organic (BIODYN) and one conventional (CONMIN) field. Every field included three plots with different precipitation treatments: a partial rainout shelter (Roof - 2.5 m × 2.5 m, 1.3–1.7 m height) that reduced precipitation by 65%; a rainout shelter control (Roof Control), which did not reduce precipitation, but allowed knowing possible artefacts derived from the shelters; and an open field (Control) without a shelter. In total, there were 24 experimental plots (i.e., four replicated fields in two farming systems with three precipitation treatments each). The rainout-shelters were installed from mid-March 2017 (during wheat tillering stage) until June of that same year (shortly before wheat harvesting). Details on the design and installation of the rainout shelters are available in Kundel et al. (2018).