Table 1.

Plant growth traits and developmental stages in this study

Plant growth trait	Plant growth stage
Tiller number	Terminal spikelet (TS) stage
Leaf number	White anther (WA) stage
Node number	Green anther (GA) stage
Plant height	Yellow anther (YA) stage
Spike length	Tipping (TP) stage
Spikelet number	Heading (HD) stage
Leaf area	Anthesis (AN)
Spike dry weight (DW)
Leaf dry weight (DW)
Main shoot dry weight (DW)
Tiller dry weight (DW)

All the traits were only measured on the main shoot, except tiller number and tiller DW. Tiller DW is the dry weight of a plant without the main shoot. Grain number indicates the grain number per spikelet/spike on the main shoot; grain area, length and width are measurements of individual grains on the main shoot. All of the plant growth traits were measured at each of the seven stages, except for spike DW, which was not measured at the TS or WA stages.