LTER-Austria - Austrian Society for Long-term Ecological Research
Fuchsenbigl | Website
Short Description
The Fuchsenbigl Field Station is an agricultural research site of the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) and representative of productive soils managed as arable land. This site is located in the Marchfeld (Lower Austria), the soil is described as a fine sandy-loamy Calcaric Chernozem (WRB). Cultivated crops include cereals (e.g. winter wheat, barley, rye), sugar beet, maize and potatoes. Current research objectives include to study the effects of different conventional arable management practices on crop yields and quality and on chemical, physical and biological soil parameters.
Contact Person
Adelheid Spiegel
Research Services
The purpose of the site is the investigation of soil organic matter and nutrient dynamics affected by different soil management (e.g. tillage, cropping systems, mineral and organic fertilisation, crop residues management) with long-term experiments.
Methods & Expertise for Research Infrastructure
The following long-term experiments are carried out:
• Long-term field experiment with 14C-labeled wheat straw and farmyard manure (since 1967)
• Long-term field experiment with different tillage treatments (since 1988)
• Long term mineral P- and K-fertilisation (since 1956)
• Removal/return of crop residues, P-fertilisation (in Rutzendorf, Marchfeld, since 1982)
Data collected at the site:
• Chemical soil data: + pH, Corg, Nt, CEC, carbonate content, plant available nutrients (P, K): once a year from the tillage experiment, selected parameters at irregular intervals from the other field experiments + molecular characteristics of SOM (bulk samples, humic acids) with different spectroscopic methods: once (14C and tillage experiment)
• Physical soil data: texture, bulk density, aggregate stability, water capacity, pore volume, water permeability: once/twice (tillage experiment)
• Microbial soil data: once a year (substrate induced respiration; N-mineralisation; xylanase activity; pot. nitrification; phosphatase activity; protease activity) till 2002 at the tillage experiment
• Crop data (yields, nutrient contents): each year