Identification of factors affecting rice yield gap in southwest China: An experimental study

Knowledge about the relative importance of influencing-factors on rice yield gap is crucial to rice production, especially in southwestern China where topography is extremely complicated. In the current study, the data of rice yield from a total of 76 experiments were collected in 2008 and 2009 in Chongqing, southwest China. For each location, two treatments with fertilizer and without fertilizer were carried out, each treatment was performed with three replications, and yield gap was calculated using fertilized yield minus unfertilized yield. Seventeen influencing-factors including variety, fertilization, climate, terrain, and soil properties were obtained at each location. Regression tree (RT) model were employed to investigate relative important of influencing-factors to rice yield gap variability. The result of Pearson correlation analysis suggested yield gap of rice was positively correlated with sunshine hours, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers, while negatively correlated with soil available nitrogen content. The results of RT showed that the selected influencing-factors explained about 74.1% of rice yield gap variation. Meanwhile, the result also indicated variety followed by others had more influence on rice yield gap variation. Our findings analyzed by regression model at a regional scale suggested that more precise fertilization recommendation should be formulated based on comprehensive factors (e.g., soil, climate, terrain, variety), which reasonably guided farmer and government for rice production.