Cluster Marchfeld - Database on soil parameters and yields of diverse tillage systems from three LTER sites in Austria (2018-2022)

The agroecological “Marchfeld” cluster assess the impacts of tillage on crop yield and selected soil parameters, at three Austrian LTER sites in the years 2018 to 2022. Tillage at all sites consists of a reduced (soil depth 10-15 cm) and a mouldboard ploughing (25-30 cm) system. On the conventionally farmed study sites, further gradations of tillage were introduced, mainly no-till and minimum tillage (5-8 cm). Since the LTER sites are operated over a long period of time (between 34 and 6 years), our parameters show cumulative historical developments that influence the present. All three LTER sites are combined in a coherent group, the LTER Cluster “Marchfeld” of the Pannonian region in Austria with diverse crop rotations, varying agricultural management systems (two conventionally and one organically managed) and different tillage systems. The Marchfeld cluster database compromise of 1153 records and was built with Microsoft Access 2019. The provided files (Marchfeld Cluster) contains data on a) agricultural management, b) primary production (crop yield), c) soil parameters (organic carbon and nitrogen concentration) collected at three LTER experimental sites, and d) socio-ecological parameters gathered for the 23 municipalities encompassing and surrounding the three LTER sites. These socio-economic data have a longer focus period (1970-2023) in order to capture and present the influences of gradual changes in the region's socio-economic and biophysical framework. Furthermore, the socio-ecological trajectories for land-use change, livestock, production system and intensity are presented in the data publication (DOI: ). As the socio-ecological parameters are third-party data, reference is made to their source. The soil parameters are available for various soil depths, usually in 10 cm (MUBIL: 15 cm) increments up to 30, 50 or 100 cm for MUBIL, GE and FB, respectively. Further, detailed information about the field study sites, experimental design, analytical methods, sampling design and detailed information about the structure of the database, are offered in the data publication (DOI: xxxx).