A correlation study of proximate composition, physical and cooking properties of new high yielding and disease resistant rice varieties

The present study was aimed to compare proximate composition, physical, and cooking properties of locally cultivated rice varieties of Kashmir division viz.; SR-1, K-448, and K-39. Various physiochemical properties were studied. The relationship between physical, proximate composition, and cooking properties was determined using Pearson’s correlation. Length–breadth (L/B) ratio showed a significant positive correlation with kernel length and negative correlation with thousand kernel weight, with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.893 and −0.855, respectively, (p  0.05). Solid loss in gruel was observed to have a negative correlation with L/B ratio (r = −0.432, p > 0.05), water uptake ratio (r = −0.742, p < 0.05), and cooking time (r = −0.678, p < 0.05). The rice cultivars with higher cooking time showed lower gruel solid loss and vice versa. Water uptake was observed to be positively correlated with L/B ratio (r = 0.768, p < 0.05). Among all the cultivars studied, K-448 variety has potential for consumers’ preference and it could be used for breeding programs for the improvement of valuable grain quality traits.