Comparison of Yield and Growth Characteristics of Korean High Yielding Cultivars and IRRI's New Plant Type Rice Line

Yield and growth characteristics were compared for five rice cultivars; a new Tongil-type, so called "super-rice", Dasanbyeo, an old Tongil-type Milyang 23, two japonicas Dongjinbyeo and Ilpumbyeo, and a new plant type (NPT)line IR65600-27-1-2. The objective of this stusy was to clarify the high yielding capacity of Dasanbyeo in terms of growth characteristics. The average grain yield (9 t/ha) of Dasanbyeo was higher than that of Milyang 23 by ca. 9% that of japonicas by 20 to 30%, and that of NPT line by ca. 100%. The higher grain yield of Dasanbyeo was attributable not only to the greater dry matter production but also to the higher harvest index (HI). Dasanbyeo showed the greatest dry matter at harvest owing not only to the rapid leaf expan-sion at early growth stage and the resulting high LAI through the entire growth stage but also to the high NAR despite the high LAI. The rapid leaf expansion of Dasanbyeo at early growth stage seemed to be related in part to the profuse tillering capacity. HI was 0.53 in Dasanbyeo, 0,51 in Milyang 23, 0.41 in japonicas, and 0.35 in NPT line. Dasanbyeo was indebted for its higher HI to the relatively high grain filling ratio in spite of a much greater sink size than the other cultivars. Dasan had a greater source to sink ratio during grain ripening as measured by LAD/spikelet and dry matter production/spikelet which showed positove correlations with the grain ripening ratio. New plant type (NPT) line showed the lowest grain yield owing to the small sink size and the low grain filling ratio which seemed to have resulted from the abundant occurrence of weak-strength spikelets. The weak sink strength, in turn, seemed to have suppressed photosynthesis during the grain ripening stage.