Short-term water management at early filling stage improves early-season rice performance under high temperature stress in South China

Asymmetric warming and frequent temperature extremes are the consequences of climate change that are affecting crop growth and productivity over the globe while heat stress at early filling stage is of serious concern for the early-season rice in double cropping rice system of South China. In present study we assessed different short-term water management strategies to cope with the high temperature at early filling stage in rice. Water was applied as flood irrigation at two various depths i.e., 4–5 cm (I1) and 5–10 cm (I2) during 9:00–18:00 and then drained off at 18:00 as well as applied over-head during different time spans i.e., over-head sprinkle irrigation during 11:00–12:00, 13:00–14:00 and 14:00–15:00 at 60–80% relative humidity (RH) at early filling stage and regarded as S1, S2 and S3, respectively. A control was maintained with the maintenance of 1 cm water layer as normal farmer practice of this region. A fragrant rice cultivar, ‘Yuxiangyouzhan’ in early March (regarded as early season rice) in both 2014–15 and the effectiveness of different water management strategies were measured by estimating physio-biochemical responses, photosynthesis, yield and quality of rice exposed to high temperature stress at early filling stage. Our results showed that water treatments lowered lipid peroxidation (in terms of reduced malondialdehyde (MDA) contents) whilst proline and protein contents were affected differently. The water treatments also regulated the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), nevertheless, improved plant photosynthesis and gas exchange, rice yield and quality attributes considerably by lowering severity of canopy temperatures than control (CK). On average, both flood and sprinkler water application were proved effective against high temperature stress, nonetheless, flood irrigated treatments were remained more effective than sprinkler which provided 26.58 and 43.63% higher grain yields in 2014–15, respectively than CK. On average, 5.58 and 11.92% higher grain yields were recorded in flood irrigation than sprinkler irrigation whereas among individual water application treatments, I1 was noted as the most effective regarding grain yield of rice (26.76 and 49.35% higher yield than CK) in both years which suggests that maintenance of 4–5 cm water layer might be helpful for the rice to withstand against high temperature stress at post heading and/or early filling stage in early-season rice production in South China.