Soil and crop data from a long-term organic fertilization trial in Sub-Sahelian market gardening

TL;DR

This paper presents a long-term dataset from a market gardening trial in Senegal, tracking soil and crop responses to organic and mineral fertilizers over nearly a decade.

Contribution

The dataset uniquely combines long-term monitoring, multiple organic fertilization strategies, and Sub-Sahelian environmental conditions.

Findings

The dataset spans from 2016 to 2025 and includes soil, crop, and fertilizer data.

It supports modeling and understanding of nutrient cycling and soil health in Sub-Sahelian agroecosystems.

Samples are preserved for future analyses and the dataset is publicly accessible.

Abstract

Image, graphical abstract

Recycling the growing stock of organic waste products (OWP) from cities, factories, and farms is a key challenge for sustainable agriculture. However, it must be done with awareness of performances but also potential long-term environmental and health risks. In this context, the SOERE PRO observatory was established ("Systèmes d'Observation et d'Expérimentation pour la Recherche en Environnement - Produits Résiduaires Organiques'', a label granted by the French National Research Alliance for the Environment (AllEnvi) to recognize high-quality research infrastructures, which translates to "Long-term Observation and Experimentation Systems for Environmental Research - Organic Waste Products''), including the trial in Sangalkam, in the Dakar region of Senegal, where these data are collected. Since 2016, four fertilizer types - one mineral (synthetic) and three organic - have been applied annually to three successive vegetable crops (tomato, lettuce, carrot). The dataset currently covers the period 2016 - 2025, with data collection ongoing and new data to be added in the future. Manual weeding and hoeing is carried out regularly for each crop, no pesticides are used for crop protection on the trial. A comprehensive, multi-variable dataset is consistently documented, including soil physico-chemical parameters measured annually at three depths, organic waste product characterization, crop yield and quality parameters, and detailed management activities, making it particularly suitable for process-based modelling and long-term impact assessment. The originality of this dataset lies in its long duration, the diversity of organic and mineral fertilization strategies, the inclusion of multiple vegetable crops per year, and its location under Sub-Sahelian conditions, a context for which long-term agronomic datasets remain scarce. All soil, OWP and vegetables samples are stored in a sample bank in Dakar, and available for additional analyses. The objective of this dataset is to provide long-term, integrated information on crop productivity, crop quality, and soil responses to repeated organic and mineral fertilization in a Sub-Sahelian market-gardening system. The dataset is publicly available through a Dataverse repository for free (re)use in meta-analyses, process-based modelling, and environmental studies, notably to improve understanding of nutrient cycling, contaminant dynamics, soil biodiversity, and long-term soil functioning in Sub-Sahelian agroecosystems, and to support sustainable land management and food security in Southern countries under future climate change.

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