Abstract: Improving the uniformity of population in machine-transplanted rice is an effective way to increase yield. In order to clarify the impact of the interaction between precise drill sowing and tray overlapping emergence on uniformity of population and yield composition in machine-transplanted rice, and create a high-yielding and homogeneous population. The study used Indica-japonica hybrid rice ‘Yongyou 1540’ as test cultivar, two sowing rate (T₁: 36.6g, T₂: 73.2g), two sowing methods: precision drill sowing (precision drill sowing, PS) and traditional broadcast sowing (broadcast sowing, BS), and two types of tray treatment: tray overlapping (tray overlapping, OL) and tray nonoverlapping (tray nonoverlapping, NL) were set in this study. Grow seedlings using standard 9-inch stackable trays, and the machine-inserted sampling specifications are 18 transverse seedlings and 40 longitudinal seedlings. Compared the differences in seedling quality, tiller dynamics, leaf area index, dry matter accumulation, yield and its components under different treatments. The results showed as follows: (1) The tray overlapping significantly promoted the improvement of seedling quality (P<0.05), the average seedling evenness of precision drill sowing is 19.29 percentage points higher than that of broadcast sowing, the average seedling evenness of tray overlapping is 36.61 percentage points higher than that of tray nonoverlapping . (2) Precision drill sowing significantly increased the uniformity of population compared to broadcast sowing, and tray overlapping significantly enhanced uniformity of population compared to tray nonoverlapping treatment(P<0.05). Used precision drill sowing combined tray overlapping can increase the uniformity of population by 44.21 percentage points at the transplanting stage and 60.31 percentage points at the heading stage respectively. High-uniformity population had more peak seedling numbers, thereby obtaining more productive panicle numbers. (3) Both precision drilling and tray overlapping increased the leaf area index and dry matter accumulation of population. (4) Precision drill sowing combined with tray overlapping through a greater number of productive panicles in population to manifest as high yield. Enhanced the seeding rate can reduce the yield reduction under traditional broadcast sowing and tray nonoverlapping treatment. (5) Through Partial least squares path model analysis (PLS-PM) can know that the direct effect of tray overlapping on rice population uniformity is 0.7209, which was greater than 0.3075 of precise strip sowing. The direct effect of rice population uniformity on the productive panicle numbers and the dry matter weight for aboveground was the largest, and the direct effects of productive panicle numbers and the dry matter weight for aboveground on yield reached 0.9864 and 0.8250 respectively. All of all, precise drill sowing and tray overlapping significantly improve the seedlings evenness and uniformity of machine-transplanted rice population(P<0.05), though the increasing productive panicle numbers and dry matter accumulation of population, then getting high yield. In practical production application, when it is difficult to make the seed distribution and development uneven due to technical reasons, increasing the seeding rate can improve the uniformity of the machine-transplanted rice population and play a role in alleviating yield losses.