Phenological information of paddy rice is important for area extraction and growth monitoring. The purpose of this study is to detect the major phenological stages of paddy rice over China using remote sensing data. Time-series Terra moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer （MODIS） Enhanced Vegetation Index （EVI） was smoothed with the low pass Fourier and wavelet filtering methods

then the stages of transplanting

beginning of tillering

heading

and maturation were obtained according to their characteristics. The paddy rice stages in 2005 derived from this study were significantly positive correlated and consistent with the statistical data （P < 0.05）

and most of the absolute errors were less than 16 d. The methods presented in this study could be applied in other years

as well as the ability to generate the growth stages of other crops.