Water, carbon and nitrogen cycling in a rendzina soil cropped with winter oilseed rape: the Chalons Oilseed Rape Database

The Chalons Oilseed Rape Database holds the results of a comprehensive expe riment on the dynamic fluxes of water, carbon and nitrogen within a soil-cr op system at the field-scale, conducted in the Champagne region in France. The Chalons experiment started with the sowing of a rapeseed crop (Brassica napus L.) in September 1994, and stopped at its harvest in July 1995. It i nvolved three fertilizer N treatments and a bare control. The soil was a re ndzina overlying a subsoil of mixed compact and cryoturbed chalk. The varia bles monitored were: crop biomass, C and N content, soil matric potential, water and mineral N contents, actual evapotranspiration, nitrous oxide emis sions, and ammonia volatilization, along with the usual meteorological data . Mass-balance estimates of water drainage and NO, leaching below the root- zone, along with N-15 balances accounting for the short-term dynamics of fe rtilizer N are also available. The data are accessible on the Internet thro ugh a World Wide Web server by means of a specific frontend, and may be use d to test or calibrate soil-crop models. ((C) Inra/Elsevier, Paris.).