Growth characteristics and grain yield of machine-transplanted medium indica hybrid rice with high daily yield

High-yield rice varieties with a suitable growth duration are required for mechanical transplanting in multiple cropping systems. Daily yield is an appropriate criterion for the selection of machine-transplanted rice varieties. The aim of this study was to investigate the growth characteristics and grain production in machine-transplanted medium indica hybrid rice with a high daily yield. We conducted a field experiment on 20 medium indica hybrid rice varieties in 2017 and 2018.Grain yield decreased significantly with growth duration between jointing and heading, but it increased with dry matter accumulation, growth rate between jointing and heading, dry matter partitioning to the stem plus sheath at heading, daily yield, and number of spikelets per panicle. Compared with the medium and low daily yield variety types, the high daily yield variety type increased shoot biomass by improving crop growth rate and dry matter accumulation amount between jointing and heading and after heading. The high daily yield variety type decreased the growth duration pre-heading and the proportions of dry matter partitioned to the leaf lamina at heading and maturity, but it also increased the post-heading accumulated dry matter in the grain and the remobilization of dry matter stored in the vegetative organs. Furthermore,the high daily yield variety type significantly increased the occurrence rate of tillers, which is beneficial for the formation of a larger panicle size and an increase in the grain-filling rate. These changes contributed to a 6.51–23.16% relative increase in grain yield of the high daily yield variety type. In conclusion, the selection of high daily yield indica hybrid rice varieties with shorter pre-heading growth duration, greater tiller occurrence rate and spikelet numbers per panicle, higher post-jointing growth rates and stem plus sheath dry matter accumulation at heading is suitable for machine-transplanted rice.

A Study of the Factors that Affect Safe Full Heading of Machine-transplanted Rice Seedlings in the Temperate and Cool Rice-growing Areas

This paper studies the factors that affect the safe full heading of machine-transplanted rice seedlings in the temperate and cool ricegrowing areas,and explores the influence of machine-transplanted rice seedling varieties,seedling age,nitrogen fertilizer application rate and management on the safe full heading of machine-transplanted rice seedlings. Results show that for the mechanized production in the temperate and cool rice-growing areas,we should select the mid-early maturity cold-resistant varieties with growth period of not exceeding 180 d,control the seedling age to be 30- 35 d and total amount of pure nitrogen to be not more than 300 kg / ha,and moderately reduce the nitrogen fertilizer postponing ratio. Under this condition,we can achieve safe full heading of machine-transplanted rice seedlings and ensure the yield.

Growth of tandem long-mat rice seedlings using controlled release fertilizers:Mechanical transplantation can be more economical and high yielding

The traditional soil-based rice seedling production methods for mechanical transplanting are resource-intensive,time consuming and laborious.The improvement and optimization of nutrient management in soil-less nursery raising methods like tandem long-mat seedlings(TLMS)are necessary for the resource-efficient cultivation of rice.In the present study,a controlled-release fertilizer(CRF)-polymer-coated compound fertilizer with 3 months release period(PCCF-3M)was applied as seedling fertilizer(SF),and five different dosages of SF(SF-0,SF-10,SF-20,SF-30,and SF-40)were compared with an organic substrate as the control(CK).Among all SF treatments,the best results were obtained with the application of 20 g/tray of SF(SF-20),as the seedling quality and machine transplanting quality were comparable to those of CK.In contrast,the lower dosages(SF-0 and SF-10)resulted in low nitrogen content and reduced shoot growth,while the higher dosages(SF-30 and SF-40)resulted in toxicity(increased malondialdehyde accumulation)and inhibited the root growth.Similarly,SF-20 increased panicle number(5.6-7.0%)and yield(4.3-5.3%)compared with CK,which might be related to the remaining SF entangled in the roots supporting the tiller growth of rice seedlings in the field.Moreover,SF-20 reduced the seedling block weight(53.1%)and cost of seedling production(23.5%)but increased the gross margin,indicating that it was easy to handle and economical.Taken together,our results indicate that SF-20 is a cost-effective way to promote the growth and transplanting efficiency of rice seedlings.To our knowledge,this study is the first to determine the optimum dosage of CRF for the soil-less production of rice seedlings.