Interactive effects of autumn tillage with mulching on soil temperature, productivity and water use efficiency of rainfed potato in loess plateau of China

•Tillage with mulching practices significantly affected potato production and water-use efficiency.•Plastic film, straw mulching practices significantly improved the soil water and temperature status during the potato growing seasons.•Tillage combined with mulching made the topsoil warmer and wetter to ensure potato tuber formation with a high yield.•Conservation tillage with straw mulching significantly improving the potato water-use efficiency and rainwater use efficiency Low precipitation and temperature fluctuations are key limiting factors that influence the potato tuber yield in rainfed areas of the Loess Plateau, China. The implementation of tillage with mulching during fallow after the autumn harvest may be an effective management strategy to help reduce soil evaporation and conserve more soil water for spring sown potato. We conducted a three-year field experiment in a semiarid area of the Loess Plateau in 2014–2015, 2015–2016, and 2016–2017 to study the interactive effects of autumn tillage and mulching practices during fallow on the soil temperature, moisture, tuber yield, and water-use efficiency of potato. The treatments comprised three tillage systems in the main plots, i.e., no-tillage (NT), subsoiling (ST), and plowing tillage (PT), and three mulching methods in the subplots, i.e., straw mulch (SM), plastic-film mulch (PM), and no mulch (NM), in a replicated split plot design. Autumn tillage with mulching during fallow significantly influenced the soil water storage, especially in the early growing season of potato. Among the mulching methods, SM and PM increased the mean soil water storage by 6.3% and 5.9% (P