Abstract: The aim is to study the effects of tillage patterns and wheat straw returning on grain yield and quality of rice.Japonica rice cultivar‘Nanjing 5055’was used as the material, 5 treatments combined with two tillage patterns [ditch-buried (DB) and rotary tillage (RT)] and different wheat straw amounts were set up, including no straw returning (CK), half straw returning with ditch-buried (DB-HS), total straw returning with ditch-buried (DB-TS), half straw returning with rotary tillage (RT-HS) and total straw returning with rotary tillage (RT-TS). The yield, quality and starch viscosity of rice were detected. The results showed that compared with CK, wheat straw returning all increased the yields and the yields of RT-HS and DB-TS increased by 5.3% and 3.6%, respectively. Wheat straw returning also improved the processing quality of rice, appearance quality and nutrient quality in different ways. But it had no positive effects on cooking quality. RT- TS decreased the values of peak viscosity, breakdown and gel consistency and increased the setback value and amylose content in rice flour leading to the poor cooking and tasting quality. The above results indicated that DB could obtain higher yield and quality of rice than that of RT, along with the increase of straw returning.