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Soil hydraulic properties are very sensitive to land-use in regions susceptible to physical degradation. Intensive agricultural practices often lead to soil compaction and erosion in the investigated area. The main goal of this paper was to evaluate the impact of land-use on the pore size distribution and water retention in loamy soils. The soil water retention curve (SWRC) combined the total porosity and the water retention of the undisturbed sample at 3, 10, 31, 100, 310, and 1000 hPa suctions and the disturbed sample at 1.5 MPa. The triple-exponential model approximated the curve's course, and its derivative defined the distinct macro-, structural, and textural pore maxima, with characteristic suctions corresponding to SWRC inflection points. The soil organic carbon content had the greatest influence on the content of all three pore classes. The water retention properties followed the hierarchical pore size distribution in the four research plots and decreased in the identical orchard > forest > grassland > arable soil order. These results show that the orchard and forest areas are the most appropriate land uses with respect to porosity and water retention, while the grassland has not fully recovered after its conversion from arable soil and remains relatively poor, and the arable soil properties are the worst.

Traditional orchards are a valuable feature of the rural landscape and they are specific for regions with scattered settlement such as the Myjava hilly land and White Carpathians. Here, the permanent species-rich grasslands beneath trees were regularly managed in the traditional manner until some were replaced in the 1970’s and 80’s by intensively managed orchards, some of which were abandoned in the early 1990’s. Our 2011–2015 phytosociological research followed the standard Braun-Blanquet approach. We classified 178 phytosociological relevés recorded in orchard meadows (156 relevés), former intensively managed orchards (16 relevés), and two relevés from a semi-intensively grazed orchard. Traditionally managed orchard meadows were classified in the following five units: (<em><strong>i</strong></em>) <em>Pastinaco sativae-Arrhenatheretum elatioris</em> – thermophilous variant, (<em><strong>ii</strong></em>) <em>Pastinaco sativae-Arrhenatheretum elatioris</em> – transitional variant to <em>Alchemillo-Arrhenatheretum elatioris</em>, (<em><strong>iii</strong></em>) <em>Ranunculo bulbosi-Arrhenatheretum elatioris</em>, (<em><strong>iv</strong></em>) <em>Onobrychido viciifoliae-Brometum erecti</em>, and (<em><strong>v</strong></em>) <em>Brachypodio pinnati-Molinietum arundinaceae</em>. Formerly intensively managed large-scale orchards were classified as <em>Pastinaco sativae-Arrhenatheretum elatioris</em> association and the semi-intensively grazed orchard as <em>Lolio perennis-Cynosuretum cristati</em> association. The species composition varies considerably due to tree-shading and different management treatments applied in the orchards, so the relevés of the delimited syntaxonomic units are not typical and have transitional character. Moisture, soil nutrients, and soil reaction were identified as the main environmental gradients influencing species composition. We tested four management treatments in direct gradient analysis and found that abandonment has the strongest effect on species composition. Comparison of grassland vegetation in the studied traditional orchards with that described in Germany reveals differences in species composition. Moreover, species richness of the compared <em>Arrhenatherion elatioris</em> and <em>Bromion erecti</em> alliances in Slovakian orchard meadows was higher than in the German orchards.

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