Abstract
Ultrasonic treatment and optimal cultivation techniques are both conducive to the high yield of super rice in South China. Many previous studies have shown that the increase in intercepted photosynthetically active radiation (IPAR) and radiation use efficiency (RUE) is an important reason for high rice yield. Field experiments were conducted over two years to evaluate the effects of IPAR and RUE on the yield under different treatments (CK: conventional cultivation technique without ultrasonic treatment; T1: conventional cultivation technique with ultrasonic treatment; T2: super rice-specific cultivation technique without ultrasonic treatment and T3: super rice-specific cultivation technique with ultrasonic treatment), with two representative rice varieties, Wufengyou-615 (WFY) and Jingnongsimiao (JNSM) during the late seasons of rice cultivation in South China. The super rice-specific cultivation technique and the ultrasonic treatment could significantly increase the yield, which was significantly (p < 0.01) and positively correlated with panicle number, grain-filling rate, and aboveground total dry weight. The higher grain yield depended more highly on higher RUE in the mid-tillering stage and maturity stage. The results of multiple-regression models also showed that the contributions of IPAR and RUE to yield were significant (p < 0.01). Conclusively, IPAR and RUE contributed a lot to yield progress of super rice in both super rice-specific cultivation techniques with fewer times of topdressing and ultrasonic treatment in South China. It is worth further studying how to reasonably improve the RUE of high-RUE varieties through other means.