The study of rice identification during early season aims to maintain cultivated area and distribution status of rice during its early season so as to provide decision support for agricultural management sectors to develop policies and measures, as well as important information for agricultural insurance sectors and agricultural products market. Multi-polarization TerraSAR-X data of Xuwen study site locating in Southern China were programmed during early season of early rice in the year of 2009. By means of comparing analysis, it is discovered that rice has more obvious identification features in jointing period and flowering period. Rice identification experiments are carried out using decision tree and object-oriented classification method. The results show that imagery acquired at the jointing period is more suitable for rice identification during the early season for a nationwide operational rice monitoring system.