Yield, soil and management data of the Frick long-term experiment on tillage, fertilization and biodynamic preparations on a Stagnic Eutric Cambisol in Switzerland

This dataset is part of the database compiled as an outcome of Work Area 1 in project OrganicYieldsUP. Variable definitions can be found here:  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15276082

In Frick (Switzerland), a long-term experiment was established at the farm of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in autumn 2002 on a clay loam (Stagnic Eutric Cambisol). In this three-factorial experiment, a reduced tillage system with a chisel plough to a depth of 10 cm is compared to conventional ploughing to a depth of approx. 20 cm, a liquid manure system is compared to a compost manure system and the adding of biodynamic preparations is compared to none preparations. Biodynamic preparations had been assessed previously in system comparison experiments, however, their effect is difficult to elucidate separately in a system comparison approach. One reason for setting up this experiment was therefore a demand among farmers and researchers in early 2000 to disentangle the influence of biodynamic preparations from the influence of manure compost on soil fertility. On the other hand, it should be tested if and how reduced tillage is feasible in organic farming. 
This dataset consists of plot data for yield, soil and management from 2002 to 2018. The crop rotation at the start of the experiment was winter wheat, sunflower, spelt and two years of grass clover. Sunflower was excluded after 2010 because of total yield loss due to slugs. For yield, total aboveground plant biomass is given for silage maize, grass-clover and cover crops, grain yield for winter wheat, spelt and sunflowers. Total nitrogen and phosphorus contents of the yield components are given as well.

Weed data is given as total weed cover and/or total weed biomass in the years with row crops. For pests and diseases, Fusarium toxins (DON) are given for 2003 and slug emergence for 2010.

For soil data, soil organic carbon content, total nitrogen content and pH are given plotwise for the layers 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm in three year intervals generally. Bulk density is available for some years and plots.

This dataset has been evaluated and published in a research paper by Maike Krauss, Alfred Berner, Frédéric Perrochet, Robert Frei, Urs Niggli and Paul Mäder (2020): Enhanced soil quality with reduced tillage an solid manures in organic farming – a synthesis of 15 years. Scientific Reports 10:4403, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61320-8

We are grateful for the financial support in running the field trial by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) and following foundations: Software AG - Stiftung (DE), Stiftung zur Pflege von Mensch, Mitwelt und Erde (CH), Stiftung Edith Maryon (CHF), the COOP Sustainability Fund and the CORE Organic II funding bodies, being partners of the FP7 ERA-Net project TILMAN-ORG (www.coreorganic2.org).