1. SOIL OBSERVATORIES Austrian site by Winfried E.H. Blum Institute of Soil Research University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna Peter Jordan Str. 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria

3. Soil tillage long-term field experiment (since 1988): Conventional tillage (CT): mouldboard ploughing to 25-30 cm soil depth. Reduced tillage (RT): treatment with a cultivator to a depth of 15 - 20 cm. Minimum tillage (MT): treatment with a rotary-driller without any primary treatment before seeding to a depth of 5 - 8 cm. Soil and site characteristics : Fine-sandy loamy Haplic Chernozem (clay 22 %, silt 41 %, sand 37 %, pH 7.65, carbonate 13 %, organic C 1.19 % and total N 0.16 %).  annual temperature is 9.4°C.  annual precipitation is 529 mm.

4. Experimental design: randomized block with three replicates, the plots measuring 60 m x 12 m (= 720 m 2 ).