The decay of wood samples buried in the soil is influenced by various factors. Decisive are the water content, the content of organic substances, pH-value content of mineral nutritive substances etc. of the soil. For the tests, carried out by the EMPA until now, it was always started with a water content of 35%, refered to the dry weight of the EMPA-soil = 75% of its water capacity. In order to investigate more closely the dependance of wood decay from the water content of the soil, degradation tests with two defined soil types were carried out (EMPA-compost soil and a mixture of 1 part EMPA compost soil + 3 parts of quartz sand). Starting from these two test soils their water content was varied.

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