*2.3. Soil Physical and Chemical Analysis*

The analysis of soil physical properties (done in triplicate) showed that the soil has a sandy soil texture, measured by dry sieve method (sand% "2 to 0.053 mm": 97.30 ± 1.02; silt% "0.032 mm": 2.09 ± 1.01; clay% "<0.032 mm": 0.61 ± 0.37).

The analysis of soil chemical properties (done in triplicate) showed that the soil electric conductivity (EC) is 0.971 ± 0.064 mS measured by EC meter with pH 7.6 ± 0.035 measured at 21 ◦C by pH meter; both tests were done for disturbed samples. The soil samples consisted of 0.520 ± 0.047% organic matter measured by the Walkley–Black method. The utilized soil consisted of 0.0761 ± 0.015% nitrogen, 6.074 ± 0.021 ppm phosphorus and 102.54 ± 0.468 ppm potassium. The total nitrogen was measured by Vario MACRO cube CHNS and manufactured by Elementar Co. (Langenselbold, Germany), while the total phosphorus and potassium were measured by inductively coupled plasma atomic

emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), model 710-ES. The total soil calcium carbonate (CaCO3) was 27.841 ± 0.844% measured by calcimeter method.

#### *2.4. Statistics and Experimental Design*

The data were subjected to a statistical analysis using SPSS statistical software version 21. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey (honestly significant differences, HSD) multiple range test were employed, and the differences between the individual means were deemed to be significant at *p* ≤ 0.05 significance level.

The figures and tables illustrate the significant differences between the individual groups by letters, in which the use of either different letters in the same treatment group, the use of the symbol (\*), or both, mean that there is a significant difference at *p* ≤ 0.05 (unless a different significance level is specified), while the use of similar letters or absence of letters means that the difference between the same individual group is not significant.

The experimental design of all the conducted experiments is completely randomized. The number of samples and their replications used are illustrated separately in the description of each experiment.
