1988 Volume 57 Issue 4 Pages 599-607
In order to clarify the regularity of shoot development in an individual rice plant, the nodal position of the last tiller on each stem was investigated for four year period using 6-10 plants individually potted. The results disagreed with the generally accepted theory of "synchronous development of leaves and tillers" (Katayama, 1951), which proposes a "standard" plant and indicates the theoretical nodal positions of the last tillers. Our data rather coincided with the assumption by Yatsuyanagi et al (the left collums of Table 2 and 3) in principle, but differed from the "standard" plant, with a certain regularity regarding Katayama's theoretical nodal positions of the last tillers (the right collums of Table 2 and 3); the actual position of the last secondary tiller was higher by one node, that of the last tertiary tiller by two or one nodes and that of the last quaternary tiller by three or two nodes. Thus we conclude that the nodal positions of the last tillers coincide, in principle with the positions assumed by Yatsuyanagi et al. The maximum number of tillers (T max.) obtained on the basis of their assumption can be expressed in a formula, T max.= 2n, where n is the nodal position of the last primary tiller. Those maximum numbers are found to be about twice as large as the maximum numbers based on the "standard" plant.
