The need for new tools and investment to improve the accuracy of selecting for grain quality in rice

Rice quality is an essential component of developing new varieties. Simple, high throughput techniques for several indicators of quality were developed long ago, but every breeder knows that two grains can be equal by those tests, but totally different in the mouth of consumer. Further, recent data show that evaluation of rice in terms of cooking and eating quality is not standardised around the world. These two issues pose a problem for breeders who need accurate information to facilitate consumer acceptance of released varieties and a common language to enable dialogue in global rice trading. In order to address these issues we suggest bringing new innovative science to rice quality, such as rheology, tribology and the omics, through greater investment in research. In addition, we suggest collaboration between grain quality specialists to harmonise methods and to bring innovation to developing new scientific outcomes into high-throughput, robust and trait-relevant methods to provide rice improvement programmes with timely and useful information to enable selection.