In a dry Scots pine forest near the village Salgesch within the Swiss Canton of Valais, an experiment since 2010 has studied the influence of understory - appeared after cessation of cattle grazing - on the pre-existing overstory and site conditions. The dataset published here compromises 120 time series of 60 soil temperature and 60 volumetric water content (VWC) sensors (EC-TM and 5-TM) (Decagon Devices, WA, USA) buried at three soil depth (5, 30, 60 cm) in the direct vicinity of 12 trees, of which six had their understory removed whilst six others were left untreated (control). At the soil depth of 5 and 60 cm, the measurements have been performed at three versus four locations at 30 cm depth. Six EM50 data loggers have recorded hourly data since April 2010 with 18% gaps or 11% when not considering the winter months (December-February). The figures attached to this repository show, per treatment, the average VWC and temperature of all measurements within the same depth, aggregated in weekly intervals and for the 2010-2016 period. The standard deviations were plotted as transparent polygons. In the case of low data coverage, the setting-specific mean standard deviation of the considered time period was plotted
