Study area
The study area of Alcubillas is in the Castilla-La Mancha Community in
Central Spain (Figure 1). The coordinates of this site are 38º 45’7” N
and 3º 8’5” W and the area is 4,768 ha. The main crops that are
cultivated in Alcubillas are vines, olive trees and cereals. There are
also some small plots dedicated to orchards.
One of the main physiographic features is a virtually flat and
karstified surface that is interrupted by residual reliefs in the form
of inselberg and an alluvial plain. The major parent materials are
calcareous sediments, limestones (with signs of karstification, as
evidenced by the appearance of numerous ‘dolinas’), clay sediments of
fluvial character, and quartzite sandstones (in some cases slates) in
residual surfaces of the Paleozoic era. At this site the majority of the
soils are Alfisols, Inceptisols and Entisols according to Soil Taxonomy
(Soil Survey Staff 2014) and Luvisols, Calcisols, Cambisols, Regosols
and Leptsols according to FAO-UNESCO-ISSS (2006). The dominant formation
is constitued by Red soils (Alfisols) with calcic or petrocalcic
horizons (Jiménez-Ballesta et al. 2020).