Mountain agropastoralists in ancient Central Asia are widely recognized as having facilitated the dispersal of crops, herd animals, and other cultural attributes across Eurasia. Nonetheless, how they integrated farming with herding into mixed economies, particularly in arid regions requiring irrigation, remains poorly understood. We examined the mid-first millennium AD site of Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) in Xinjiang to understand the farming strategies employed by mountain agropastoralists. Comprehensive macrobotanical analyses revealed an unexpectedly diverse plant assemblage, including nine regular crops, Medicago (cultivated and/or concentrated around the site by grazing), and 46 types of wild plants, despite the arid climate. Besides contributing to the discussion on the transcontinental dispersal of crops, such as peas, lentils, flax, buckwheat, sesame, and Medicago, the findings highlight four key farming strategies: 1) diversification (cultivating a broad range of cereals and secondary crops), 2) specialization (prioritizing water-intensive but high-yielding wheat among the cereals), 3) embedded integration (deliberately designing farming practices to support herding, as we argue that they were growing fodder crops), and 4) division of labor (allocating farming and herding activities across different social groups). The plant assemblage provides new insights into ancient herding strategies, highlighting the importance of artificial ecotopes or ecological patches in local herding practices. We show that irrigation profoundly influenced the farming strategies of ancient agropastoralists.