Many studies have shown that vegetation properties (vegetation type [9], species composition [16], stand age [17], and canopy structure [18]), climate (solar radiation [19], air temperature (T\({}_{\text{a}}\)) [20], precipitation (P) [3], and CO\({}_{2}\) concentration [21]), and management practices (pruning, thinning [22], fertilization [23], and irrigation [24]) determine the LUE variations in terrestrial ecosystems. In forest ecosystems, the LUE is generally greater in evergreen broadleaf forest than in other forests [25], and the spatial heterogeneity of LUE is mainly determined by the annual P and annual mean T\({}_{\text{a}}\)[3; 20; 26]. As a single species is usually used for plantations, the LUE is often lower in plantations than that in natural forests with a complex canopy [18], but management practices can compensate for this to a degree in the same region [24]. The effects of biophysical factors on LUE in plantations are similar to natural forests, that is, plant growth dominates the general trend in LUE and physical factors control the day-to-day variations in LUE. However, the effects of physical factors on temporal variations in LUE vary for different plantations [27]. For example, T\({}_{\text{a}}\) was the dominant influencing factor of the LUE in a coniferous plantation in Northeast China [3], and the LUE was insensitive to T\({}_{\text{a}}\) in an evergreen broadleaf plantations in southern China [28]. [PERSON] et al. (2017) reported that LUE had a negative correlation with vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in a warm temperate mixed plantation in north China, but the LUE increased with increasing VPD in a rubber plantation in South China [27]. Knowledge of the temporal variation in LUE and its controlling factors is necessary for simulating and predicting energy fixation and the carbon cycle in the context of global climate change [11; 29], but this knowledge is still scarce in many plantation ecosystems. Plantation area (8.00 \(\times\) 10\({}^{8}\) ha) accounts for 36% of the total forest area in China and plays a key role in maintaining ecological security and promoting economic development [30]. As the LUE can be used to estimate the GPP, studying the LUE in plantations may help predict carbon sequestration and wood production [31]. Chinese cork oak (_Quercus variabilis_ Bl.) is widely used in the reforested areas of lithoid hills because of its resilience to drought and barren soil, and it is used for more than 80% of soil and water conservation engineering projects in China [32]. In addition, Chinese cork oak is a species with high-quality biomass energy and is used to establish energy forests in northern China [33]. Chinese cork oak plantations have revealed the remarkable role of vegetation in aforested areas. In this study, we report a dataset of eddy covariance measurements for a Chinese cork oak plantation created during 2006-2019 in northern China. The specific objectives of our study were to (1) examine the temporal variations in LUE at scales ranging from hours to years and (2) investigate the effect of biophysical factors on LUE at different time scales. As LUE was the ratio of GPP to PAR in this study, it was hypothesized that the effects of other biophysical factors on LUE were mainly via the GPP and PAR at various time scales.