Plant Density Effect on Grain Number and Weight of Two Winter Wheat Cultivars at Different Spikelet and Grain Positions

In winter wheat, grain development is asynchronous. The grain number and grain weight vary significantly at different spikelet and grain positions among wheat cultivars grown at different plant densities. In this study, two winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars, ‘Wennong6’ and ‘Jimai20’, were grown under four different plant densities for two seasons, in order to study the effect of plant density on the grain number and grain weight at different spikelet and grain positions. The results showed that the effects of spikelet and grain positions on grain weight varied with the grain number of spikelets. In both cultivars, the single-grain weight of the basal and middle two-grain spikelets was higher at the 2(nd) grain position than that at the 1(st) grain position, while the opposite occurred in the top two-grain spikelets. In the three-grain spikelets, the distribution of the single-grain weight was different between cultivars. In the four-grain spikelets of Wennong6, the single-grain weight was the highest at the 2(nd) grain position, followed by the 1(st), 3(rd), and 4(th) grain positions. Regardless of the spikelet and grain positions, the single-grain weight was the highest at the 1(st) and 2(nd) grain positions and the lowest at the 3(rd) and 4(th) grain positions. Overall, plant density affected the yield by controlling the seed-setting characteristics of the tiller spike. Therefore, wheat yield can be increased by decreasing the sterile basal and top spikelets and enhancing the grain weight at the 3(rd) and 4(th) grain positions, while maintaining it at the 1(st) and 2(nd) grain positions on the spikelet.