The high-low seedbed cultivation increases crop yield, economic benefit, and energy efficiency while reducing the carbon footprint of winter wheat

It is critical to develop sustainable approaches to growing more grain yield while reducing environmental pressure. The high-low seedbed cultivation (HLSC) pattern can enhance crop productivity in the semi-humid North China Plain (NCP), but comprehensive assessments of its advantages from economic, energy, and environmental perspectives relative to traditional cultivation (TC) are still limited. Therefore, two-site field experiments with two cultivation patterns (i.e., HLSC and TC), one for 3-years (2017-2020 wheat season) and another for 2-years (2020-2022 wheat season), were performed to determine the economic benefits, energy balance and carbon footprint (CF) in the NCP. Results showed that, on average, the HLSC pattern exhibited 16.2 f 6.3 % higher grain yield, 27.5 f 13.1 % higher biomass yield, and 61.0 f 23.7% higher net profit over the TC pattern. Meanwhile, the HLSC have obviously increased net energy (28.8 f 13.9 %), energy use efficiency (24.8 f 12.2 %), and energy input intensity (14.7 f 6.3 %), while decreased specific energy (15.3 f 4.8 %). Furthermore, the CF per grain yield and biomass yield under HLSC decreased by 10.9 f 5.6% and 20.5 f 4.5% relative to the TC, respectively. The results suggest that HLSC is a promising wheat cultivation practices to cater to the demands of crop production with environmental sustainability in the NCP.