3.2 Effects of populations and population pairs on early-season
WR growth and development based on two-way ANOVA
Analytical results showed that population (WRE or WRL) had significant
(p <0.05) effects on vegetative growth traits, including
plant height, number of tillers per plant and leaf length/width, and
reproductive growth traits, including flowering time and reproductive
traits in the early rice-cultivation season (Table 1). However, no
significant effects of population were detected in the late
rice-cultivation season (Table S4). These results indicated possible
significant differences in these vegetative and reproductive growth
traits between the early- and late-season WR populations in the early
rice-cultivation season. In addition, population pair (CDE/L, HJE/L and
DCE/L) also showed significant effects on some of traits at different
stages in both the early and late rice-cultivation season (Table 1,
Table S4). Noticeably, a pronounced effect of population pair in the
early season was detected, for example, the extremely significant
effects (p <0.001) on flowering time and reproductive
traits (Table 1). These results showed some variations of the phenotypic
differences estimated between the early- and late-season WR populations
among different population pairs, and suggested that the
micro-environments in different rice fields also played some roles in
weedy rice growth and development.
In addition, transplant season (ES and LS) also had profound effects on
almost all of growth and development traits in both the early- and
late-season weedy rice populations (Table S5; Table S6). This result
suggested that differences in ecological elements, such as temperature
and daylength, between ES and LS may directly contribute to the
different growth and development status of weedy rice, although in the
same rice field.