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The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of red and blue lights on the photomorphogenesis and photosynthetic traits of rice seedlings. The rice seedlings were cultured with red light (R), blue light (B), combined red and blue lights (R3B1/R1B1/R1B3), and white light (CK) as the control. The combined application of red and blue lights could promote the growth of rice seedlings to varying degrees; enhance photosynthesis by increasing the seedling leaf area, chlorophyll content, and chlorophyll fluorescence; improve root characteristics by increasing root number, root volume, and root activity; and thus increase the dry matter accumulation of rice seedlings. In addition, the combination of red and blue lights could regulate the expression of genes related to photosynthesis in rice leaves, affect the activity of the Rubisco enzyme, and then affect the photosynthesis of rice seedlings. These results indicate that red and blue lights have direct synergistic effects, which can regulate the growth of rice seedlings and promote the morphogenesis of rice seedlings. The combined application of red and blue lights can be used to supplement the light in rice-factory seedling raising.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of light quality on growth, carbon and nitrogen metabolism, and antioxidant defense system of rice seedlings. Six light conditions were employed, including white (W), red (R), blue (B), combined LED of R and B at 3:1 (R3B1), combined LED of R and B at 1:1 (R1B1), as well as combined LED of R and B at 1:3 (R1B3). Combined application of red light and blue light could promote the growth of rice seedling leaves and roots under low light stress to varying degrees, increase the photosynthetic area by increasing the leaf area, improve the root characteristics by increasing the root volume, and increase the dry matter accumulation of rice seedlings. In addition, the combination of red light and blue light could increase carbon and nitrogen metabolites in rice seedling leaves, regulate the expression of genes related to carbon and nitrogen metabolism and enzyme activity, and enhance the antioxidant enzyme activity of rice seedlings. These results indicate that red light and blue light directly have synergistic effects which can regulate the carbon and nitrogen metabolism of rice seedlings, promote the morphogenesis of rice seedlings under low light stress, and promote growth, which has never been reported in previous studies. This study is a new discovery in the application of light quality in crop production and provides new avenues to enhance crop stress resistance. However, further study is needed to explore the physio-biochemical and molecular mechanisms of light quality in crop production.

In present study, sodium salt of α-naphthalene acetic acid (NA), potassium salt of fulvic acid (KF) and their combinations were applied to the growth substrates of tomato seedlings (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under chilling stress. The changes in aboveground biomass, root attributes, pigment contents, chlorophyll fluorescence, photosynthesis, osmotic regulation substances, and antioxidant enzymes activity of the tomato seedlings in response to NA and KF were investigated. The application of NA, KF and their combination could promote the growth of plant height and stem diameter of tomato seedlings under chilling stress to varying degrees, and improve root characteristics by increasing root volume, root length and root activity, and increase dry matter accumulation. In addition, the combined use of NA and KF improved the seedling leaf chlorophyll content, qP, Fv/Fm, ΦPSII , Pn and increased the activity of antioxidant enzymes in the tomato plants. The above results suggested a synergistic effect between NA and KF to stimulate the seedlings growth and to enhance the ROS scavenging ability of tomato, which has never been reported in previous research before. However, further researches are needed to explore the physiological and molecular mechanism underlying the synergistic effect between NA and KF., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The uniformity of the rice cluster distribution in the field affects population quality and the precise management of pesticides and fertilizers. However, there is no appropriate technical system for estimating and evaluating the uniformity at present. For that reason, a method based on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV images) is proposed to estimate and evaluate the uniformity in this present study. This method includes rice cluster recognition and location determination based on the RGB color characteristics of the seedlings of aerial images, region segmentation considering the rice clusters based on Voronoi Diagram, and uniformity index definition for evaluating the rice cluster distribution based on the variation coefficient. The results indicate the rice cluster recognition attains a high precision, with the precision, accuracy, recall, and F1-score of rice cluster recognition reaching > 95%, 97%, 97%, 95%, and 96%, respectively. The rice cluster location error is small and obeys the gamma (3.00, 0.54) distribution (mean error, 1.62 cm). The uniformity index is reasonable for evaluating the rice cluster distribution verified via simulation. As a whole process, the estimating method is sufficiently high accuracy with relative error less than 0.01% over the manual labeling method. Therefore, this method based on UAV images is feasible, convenient, technologically advanced, inexpensive, and highly precision for the estimation and evaluation of the rice cluster distribution uniformity. However, the evaluation application indicates that there is much room for improvement in terms of the uniformity of mechanized paddy field transplanting in South China., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

High‐density planting is a strategy employed to save resources in crop production, particularly in environmentally friendly double‐season rice (Orvza sativa L.) cropping, where it promotes high grain yield and reduces required nitrogen (N) input. We conducted a field experiment in 2014–2018 to detect the combined effect of increased seedling density and reduced N input on early rice grain yield and N use efficiency (NUE). The higher basic seedling with low N input treatment (T2) had an average grain yield of 7.01 t ha−1, which was 16.3% greater than that of the control (CK). There was a strong linear relationship between grain yield and panicles m−2 (R2 =.82, P <.001). Grain yield increased significantly with above‐ground biomass before the full‐heading stage (R2 =.79, P <.001), which in turn promoted an increase in panicles m−2 (R2 =.85, P <.001). Mean agronomic efficiency (AE) in the T2 treatment was 34.3 kg kg−1 N, which was 48.1% higher than that in the CK treatment. Therefore, increasing seedling density from 62.5 to 176 seedlings number m−2 while reducing inorganic N input in the early season resulted in significantly higher grain yield in hand‐transplanted rice production. Our results indicate that dense planting with N reduction could improve early rice grain yield and enhance NUE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]