Quality evaluation of rice varieties introduced in Rwanda

The quality of rice grain is influenced by physical and chemical characteristics which determine the milling, cooking, nutritional and eating qualities. Thus this book shows results on assessment of the physical and chemical characteristics, cooking and eating qualities of rice varieties that were grown in Rwanda. As results, all varieties were classified in the category of very long grains except Yun Yine and Zhong geng which were short grains. More than the half of the studied varieties were slender shaped. The milling test resulted to a milling recovery ranging between 65.86 % and 71.35 %. The head rice for all the varieties was ranging between 28.86 % and 68.15 % but most of the varieties had more than 60 % head rice, which is an important indicator of good quality rice in terms of yield .It was found that the head rice was positively correlated to the paddy length (r= +0.468) and also to the paddy shape (r= +0.592). High gelatinization temperature that corresponds to the longer cooking time was found for the majority of tested varieties.