Vincent de Leijster

36 Chapter 3 Figure 3-1. Schematic diagram of the four treatments. a) conventional tillage (CT), b) green manure (GM), c) no tillage (NT), and d) compost (CM). White indicates bare soil, stripes indicate green manure seed mixture, grey indicates permanent vegetation, and polka-dots indicate compost, tractor or tractor with cross indicate whether or not tillage is applied. Darker trees are sampled and lighter trees are not. 3.2.3 Field data collection 3.2.3.1 Soil properties In each plot three soil samples of 1–2 kg were taken (Table 3-2), each consisting of ten sub- samples randomly taken from three different areas in the plot from the 0–20 cm soil layer because this was the plough layer (Almagro et al., 2016). The samples were sieved at field moisture through a 2 mm sieve. The sampling was done twice, in April 2017 and again in August 2017. The first samples were taken for enzymatic activity analysis, and were stored at 4°C. The second set of samples were air dried and used for quantifying soil nutrients and organic matter. On farm 5 only soil samples were taken from the parcel with all four treatments.