Temperature and photoperiod are major environmental factors that affect the development of rice (Oryza sativa L.). The photoperiodic response of the majority of modern rice genotypes grown in Southern Brazil has not been quantified yet. The objective of this study was to investigate the photoperiodic response in some rice cultivars grown in Southern Brazil. A two-year field experiment during the 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 growing seasons was carried out with five sowing dates each year. The 2003/2004 sowing dates were (day/month/year) 9/1/2003, 10/20/2003, 11/21/2003, 1/5/2004, and 1/29/2004 and in 2004/2005 the sowing dates were 9/2/2004, 10/7/2004, 4/11/2004, 12/3/2004, and 3/2/2005. The cultivars studied were: IRGA 421, IRGA 416, IRGA 417, IRGA 420, BR-IRGA 409, BRS 7 "Taim" and EPAGRI 109, all modern type rice genotypes with different developmental cycle, varying from very early (IRGA 421) to late (EPAGRI 109). The experiment was a three-factorial (cultivar, sowing date, and growing season) in a completely randomized design with four replicates. Each replicate consisted of a 12L pot with 10 plants, five of them tagged with colored wires. The main stem final leaf number (FLN) was measured on the tagged plants. Daily photoperiod was calculated and accumulated during the inductive phase. A linear increase of FLN with accumulated photoperiod was observed in all cultivars, indicating a typical short-day response in the rice genotypes tested. Differences in the sensitivity to photoperiod among cultivars were observed.
leaf number; juvenil phase; inductive phase; sowing time
