Based on the concept of the
highest population productivity of N fertilization, we carried out a field experiments with 50 early-maturing late
japonica rice varieties which were the representativein the region of Yangtze River, using seven nitrogen applying levels (0, 150, 187.5, 225, 262.5, 300, 337.5 kg ha
-1), to investigate the difference of the most population productivity of N fertilization in varieties. Its relationships with yield components, plant-type characteristics and
nitrogen agronomic efficiency were also analyzed. The main results were as follows. (1
)With the basic yield capacity of sandy loam being 6 t ha
-1, optimum N levels of 50 tested varieties which were corresponding to their highest population yield converged in the range of 225–300 kg ha
-1, while the highest grain yield showed significant differences, varying from 7.42 to 11.02 t ha
-1.(2) There was significantly positive correlation between the highest productivity of N fertilization and the total spikelet number, with the correlation coefficient of 0.865. The top- and high-level yielding
varieties had extremely significantly larger amount of
population spikelets than the middle- and low-level yielding varieties, and this superiority of total spikelets was mainly due to the extremely remarkable increase of spikelets per panicle. (3) The highest productivity of N fertilizer rose as the high-efficiency leaf area and the weight per panicle increased. Compared with middle- and low-level yielding cultivars, top- and high-level yielding cultivars performed superior plant type characteristics: the plant height ranged from 105–110 cm, the width of basal internodes was circa 0.65 cm, the high-efficiency leaf area index was higher than 5, and panicles were big
. (4) Generally speaking, the theoretical highest population productivity of N fertilization increased with the increasing of corresponding applied N amount. But within each group of similar optimum N level, various rice cultivars produced significantly different grain yields. (5) Taking into consideration of the production capacity and the nitrogen agronomic efficiency of all 50
rice varieties, six varieties with high yield and high efficiency were selected and recommended.