All of the transgenic lines were grown during natural rice growing seasons in the experimental fields of Huazhong Agricultural University (114.36°E, 30.48°N), Wuhan, China. For the diurnal expression pattern analysis, 15-day-old seedlings of the overexpression lines and the WT lines were cultivated in a phytotron (PGV36, Conviron) at 60% humidity under long-day conditions (cycles of 14 h of light at 30 °C and 10 h of dark at 26 °C) or under short-day conditions (cycles of 10 h of light at 30 °C and 14 h of dark at 26 °C).
The flowering time (heading date) was the days from the germination to the spikelet head-out. The plant height was measured by the height from the ground surface to the top of the plant at the mature stage. The main panicle length and main panicle spikelet number was determined after collection. All of the phenotypic traits were measured for at least ten plants of each genotype with two replicates. The Student's t-test was used for statistical analysis.
The flowering time (heading date) was the days from the germination to the spikelet head-out. The plant height was measured by the height from the ground surface to the top of the plant at the mature stage. The main panicle length and main panicle spikelet number was determined after collection. All of the phenotypic traits were measured for at least ten plants of each genotype with two replicates. The Student's t-test was used for statistical analysis.