摘要
Rice ratooning cultivation is an imperative breakthrough technology for promoting supply-side structural reform of agriculture, implementing the national plan to reduce the area of double-cropping rice in the Yangtze River basin, China. While, at the same time, it also contributes to ensure the absolute safety of grain ration and optimize grain production structure in China. Rice ratooning is a cropping system in which we take advantage of the regeneration characteristics of the rice plant. For instance, the axillary buds grow rapidly into seedlings and then proceed to the stage of tillering, heading, grain filling and ripening through adopting different planting measures after the main crop (the first cropping rice) is harvested. Ratoon rice has a long history dating back 1 700 years in China. Presently, two models are commonly employed for harvesting of ratoon rice, which are manual harvesting and mechanized harvesting of ratoon rice. However, with the migration of Chinese rural labor forces, mechanized technology for ratoon rice has now become the main planting and harvesting mode. Moreover, this is also the recommended cultivation technique with promising high grain yields and better economic efficiency and more importantly it has become increasingly popular due to its beneficial aspects with the ongoing efforts of scientific research. The grain yield for both the main crop and ratooning crop is usually 15 t ha^–1 yr^–1 with a significant improvement on the economic benefits compared to the middle season and double season rice, respectively.
