Canopy Architecture Quantification and Spatial Direct Light Interception Modeling of Hybrid Rice

Rice is one of the most important crops in the world, and hybrid rice is planted broadly in China which accounts for half of China’s rice acreage. Quantification of rice spatial architecture is useful for breeding high yield cultivars, and studies on morphogenesis and development of rice plant structure have been carried out (Watanabe et al., 2005). Three-dimensional (3D) digitizing has been a powerful method for the measurement of plant architecture (Sinoquet et al., 1998), and 3D light distribution model has been used for the evaluation of different plant architecture (Pearcy and Yang, 1996; Falster and Westoby, 2003; Sinoquet et al., 2007). However, by far, few studies had been carried out on the simulation of spatial light interception of rice canopy grown in the field based on 3D digitized data. In this study, 3D canopies of two hybrid rice cultivars were computer reconstructed based on measurement data obtained with 3D digitizer. Then, characteristics of canopy architecture were analyzed and spatial direct solar radiation interceptions of these two cultivars were simulated with a 3D light distribution model (Wang et al., 2006).