Fig. 2: Agroecosystem productivity.

The entire rotation system productivity: a equivalent yield to wheat, b economic benefit – net income, and c protein yield. The productivity of WM preceded by alternative crops in rotation: d annual grain yield, e economic benefit, and f protein yield. In a–c, the black bar within violin plots shows the 25 and 75 percentiles, the whiskers beyond the bar represent 95 and 5 percentiles, and the inner white dot indicates the median. The violin shaped area reveals the data distribution. The dashed lines in d–f are the baseline values of the WM rotation, and the error bars are the standard deviation of annual value summed over winter wheat and summer maize. In a–f, one-way ANOVA with two-sided and post-hoc test was conducted to determine significant differences. Different lowercase letters denote significant differences between the rotations at P < 0.05. The exact P values: P < 0.001 in a–c, P = 0.001 in d, P = 0.032 in e and P = 0.004 in f. In b and e, $1 US = 6.95 Chinese Yuan (as of May, 2023). For a–c, n = 9; d–f, n = 18. Treatment abbreviations: WM winter wheat–summer maize (control case), SpWM sweet potato→winter wheat–summer maize rotation, PWM peanut→winter wheat–summer maize rotation, SWM soybean→winter wheat–summer maize rotation, SmWM spring maize→winter wheat–summer maize rotation, RSWM ryegrass–sorghum→winter wheat–summer maize rotation. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.