Influence of Nitrogen Applications during Grain-Filling Stage on Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Yield and Grain Quality under High Temperature

High temperature frequently occurs during rice’s early grain-filling period in the south of China, negatively affecting rice yield and quality and posing a major threat to local rice production. This experiment researched the influence of 3.5 °C warming during the first 20 grain-filling days on rice yield and quality and emphatically investigated the effects of the low-broadcast nitrogen fertilizer application level (LBN), high-broadcast nitrogen fertilizer application level (HBN) and foliar nitrogen fertilizer application (FN) at heading on the rice organ temperature, leaf photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence, yield and grain quality, pasting and thermal properties under high temperature in 2020 and 2022, with a widely planted japonica rice variety, “Wuyunjing31”, in order to explore the practical mitigation measures for reducing the adverse impact of high temperature on rice productivity. The results showed that high temperatures during grain filling increased the rice plant temperature, damaged the chlorophyll fluorescence system and decreased the net photosynthesis rate. This led to a decline in the seed-setting rate and grain weight, resulting in a 7.0% and 13.9% yield loss in 2020 and 2022, respectively. In addition, high temperature caused a decline in the head rice rate and an increase in chalk occurrence and pasting temperature, thereby deteriorating rice grain quality. Under high temperatures, HBN enhanced the rice yield by 3.6% and 13.0% in 2020 and 2022, respectively, while FN enhanced the rice yield by 11.5% in 2022. The increase in yield was linked to the increased seed-setting rate and 1000-grain weight. LBN did not significantly affect the rice yield under high temperatures. The positive effects of nitrogen fertilizer measures on rice yield were associated with their role in lowering plant temperature and protection against the damage to the chlorophyll fluorescence system. All three nitrogen application measures generally improved rice milling quality and appearance quality under high temperature, with HBN generally showing the greatest impact. Under high temperature, LBN and FN tended to make the texture of cooked rice softer due to the decreased consistency, retrogradation enthalpy and retrogradation percentage, and this was closely associated with the decline in amylose content. In summary, nitrogen supplementation at the heading could efficiently mitigate the adverse impact of high temperature during the early grain-filling period