Effects of late‐stage nitrogen fertilizer application on the starch structure and cooking quality of rice

BACKGROUND: With the rapid development of modern agriculture, high‐quality rice production and consumption has become the current urgent demand for the development of rice production. In this paper, the effects of late‐stage nitrogen fertilizer application on rice quality were studied under the same genetic background. Wx near‐isogenic lines were used as test materials to study the starch composition, amylopectin structure and cooking quality of rice. RESULTS: Results showed that rice amylose content and gel consistency significantly differed when different Wx genes were tranformed into waxy rice. The law of apparent amylose content in rice is Wxᵃ > Wxⁱⁿ > Wxᵇ > wx at the same nitrogen level, while the trend of gel consistency was opposite to that of apparent amylose content, presenting obvious characteristics of Indica and Japonica varieties. As the amount of fertilizer application increased, apparent amylose content increased, gel consistency decreased, breakdown and peak viscosities dropped and setback viscosity and peak time increased. Moreover, the cooking quality of rice significantly decreased with the use of nitrogen fertilizer, especially under low‐level nitrogen fertilizer application. Amylopectin structure varied significantly in different genotypes of the Wx gene, and the degree of branching was as follows: wx > Wxᵇ > Wxⁱⁿ > Wxᵃ. This result indicated that the closer to Indica rice, the fewer short chains of amylopectin. Starch crystallinity and swelling potential were negatively correlated with amylose content but significantly positively correlated with amylopectin branching degree, decreasing with the increase of late‐stage nitrogen fertilization. CONCLUSION: Late‐stage nitrogen fertilization reduced the cooking quality of rice by increasing amylose content and reducing amylopectin branching degree, which decreased starch crystallinity and aggravated pasting properties. Obviously, controlling late nitrogen application is essential to optimize rice quality. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry