Metadata of agricultural long-term experiments in Europe exclusive of Germany

Agricultural long-term experiments (LTEs) are an important research infrastructure for agriculture, plant and soil sciences. The aim of this metadata compilation is to make LTEs easier to find and to facilitate networking. LTEs are here defined as agricultural experiments with a minimum duration of 20 years and research in the context of soil and yield. An extensive literature review was conducted to identify LTEs in Europe exclusive of Germany, because Germany's LTEs were published before. Sources were scientific papers as well as other articles, books, trial guides and websites. The following information was searched for and compiled in this dataset, if available: site and name of the LTE, start and end (if appropriate), holding institution, type of land use (e.g. field crops or grassland), research theme, website (if available), participation in networks, measured parameters, farming category (i.e. conventional or organic), size of the LTE area, longitude and latitude of the LTE, experimental setup including factors, treatments, randomization and replication, number of plots, size of the plots, crop rotation, soil type, substrate, texture, literature which was written in the context of the LTE data, and AGROVOC keywords. LTE from the following countries are included: Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine. In total, 186 LTEs could be identified. The LTEs were classified according to the following research themes: fertilization, tillage, crop rotation, other. The majority of LTEs have the research theme “fertilization” (n = 125). Thirty LTEs have the research theme “crop rotation”, 26 LTEs have the research theme “tillage”, and 26 LTEs have “other” research themes. The following networks could be identified: GLTEN (Global long-term experiment network), ILTER (International long-term ecological research), IOSDV (International Organic Nitrogen Fertilization Experiment), NLFT (National Long-term Fertilization Trials, Hungary), RetiBio 2 (Italy). The oldest LTE was set up 1843, but the largest number of LTEs was established in the second half of the 20th century. Most of the LTEs are held by a scientific institution, i.e. 88 LTEs are held by a non-university scientific institution and 81 LTEs are held by a university or university of applied sciences. The link to the holding institution is provided whenever possible to facilitate contacting.