Data Standards for Soil- and Agricultural Research

Goal of modern research data management is to provide user-friendly infrastructures to upload, manage and provide research data in findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable formats for continued use (= ”?FAIR data principles”?). To meet these requirements, the application of accepted and widely used standards, regulations, conventions and guidelines for the different stages of research data life is necessary. With regard to agricultural science, such standards concern a wide field, e.g. the classification and description of soils, field and laboratory methods, agricultural technology, plant varieties, fertilizer products and application, agricultural business data, and agrisemantics. Additionally, more general standards are necessary, e.g. for metadata schemes, data transformation tools, data quality, data storage and archiving, data exchange, and for spatial data provision within an online geoportal. This document presents and discusses a variety of data standards for all life stages from data acquisition to provision. It is a reference work for owners, providers and users of soil- and agricultural research data and aims to facilitate data integration and knowledge spread via data repositories.