Sustainable options for improving the economic benefit, energy and ecological efficiency of maize-based forage systems in the North China Plain

Developing profitable, resource-saving, and environment-friendly maize-based forage cropping rotation systems is one of the dominant challenges facing agriculture sustainability in the North China Plain (NCP). This study comprehensively evaluated the shift from the conventional intensive maize-wheat (MW) to three optimized maize-based systems [i.e. maize-fallow monoculture (MFM), maize-ryegrass (MR), and maize-wheat-maize-ryegrass (MWMR)] in terms of economy, energy and environment impacts in the NCP. The results revealed that compared with the MW, both MR and MWMR could maintained the economic profit and increased the ratio of income to cost by 25.3 % and 10.7 %, respectively. Both MR and MWMR significantly increased the energy outputs (EO), net EO, energy use efficiency, energy productivity, and human energy profitability (HEPF), while the MFM reduced the net EO and HEPF relative to the WM. Compared with the MW, the MFM, MR, and MWMR reduced the value of total endpoint environmental impacts by 47.0 %, 45.8 %, and 22.9 %, respectively, and thus correspondingly improved the endpoint eco-efficiency by 13.3 %, 80.5 %, and 29.4 %, respectively. Overall, the maize-ryegrass and maize-wheat-maize-ryegrass rotation systems have great potential to achieve the long-term sustainability of both crop and livestock production in the North China Plain and other regions with similar agrometeorology in the world.