A one-time flush irrigation was applied on Mar. 20 when the drought stress
appeared to be very severe. In the normally irrigated control,
everything was the same as in the drought stress experiment
except a 5 cm layer of water was maintained in the field until
10 days before harvest. Days to heading (HD, in days) were
recorded for all plots when ≥50% of the plants in a plot were
completely headed. After heading, the plant height (PH, in cm)
was measured from the soil surface to the tip of the tallest
panicle (awns excluded). Atmaturity, five representative plants
in each plot were harvested by cutting the plants at the soil
surface. The harvested plants were sun-dried for 7 days and the
dried plants were measured for panicle number per plant (PN),
spikelet number per panicle (SNP), filled-grain number per
panicle (FNP), spikelet fertility (SF, in %), thousand-grain weight
(GW, in g) and grain yield per plant (GY, in g).