Feasibility of Improving Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Seeding Efficiency by Using Rice Varieties with Low Seed Weight

Unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)has offered a promising platform for rice direct seeding that can substantially reduce labor input in the crop establishment process.However,the insufficient payload capacity of UAV-based seeders is currently limiting its intensive and large-scale use for rice direct seeding.This study indicated a large variation in seed weight across varieties,ranging from 15.0 to 36.5 mg and 14.0 to 31.3 mg for inbred and hybrid varieties,respectively,with average seed weights of 25.3 mg for inbred and 24.7 mg for hybrid varieties.Seed weights of 160 out of 4106 inbred varieties and 17 out of 311 hybrid varieties ranged from 15.0 to 20.0 mg.