“…In rice, environmental (De Datta, 1981;Yoshida, 1981), genotypic (Kim & Vergara, 1990;Alam et al, 2009;Gendua et al,. 2009) and agronomic variables such as nutrient supply (Otteson et al, 2008), water management (Elhani et al, 2007;Ohe et al, 2010), plant density (Wu et al, 1998;Ottis & Talbert, 2005) and planting method Thakur et al, 2009) influence the development of emergent tillers and the subsequent plant yield distribution among panicles. Such plasticity provides a promising tool to maximize grain yield through regulation of crop growth although it needs to be based on predictability of tiller dynamics.…”