Evaluating different integrated precision rice management strategies in Northeast China

The objective of this research was to evaluate three integrated precision rice (Oryza sativa L.) management strategies for grain yield and N use efficiencies in Northeast China against farmer practice. Two field experiments were conducted in 2011 in Jiansanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, China, involving five treatments and two crop varieties (Kongyu 131 and Longjing 21). The results indicated that regional optimum rice management(RORM), chlorophyll meter-based precision rice management (CM-PRM) and GreenSeeker sensor-based precision rice management (GS-PRM) systems increased grain yield by 8-11% over farmer practice, and increased N recovery efficiency by 12% - 34%. The GS-PRM system has potential to further increase N recovery efficiency by 13-15% over the RORM systems. The RORM system also performed quite well, and is easier to be adopted by farmers. More studies are needed to further evaluate these management systems under diverse on-farm and weather conditions.