Merauke is a national rice storage extremely fundamental to ensuring food security in Indonesia. For improved rice (Oryza sativa L.) grain quality and harvest and postharvest activities, a physical grain characteristic assessment took place according to the national standardization of rice in Indonesia (SNI). Among five district sampling areas, the trait moisture content was below the SNI maximum standard, while both impurities-foreign matter and immature-chalky kernels met the SNI quality II. For the features of damage and yellow kernels, they passed the SNI quality III, and red-streaked kernels met the SNI quality II. Based on physical grain quality traits, categorizing 28 samples resulted in three groups through a principal component analysis (PCA), with a variability value of 30.87% (PC1) and a cumulative variance of 56.20%. A biplot of grain quality showed that samples Pan-M, Cem-J, Inp43-J, and Inp43-K were the outlier samples as influenced by certain characteristics, such as Pan-M having the highest immature-chalky kernels with a value of 7.54% and impurities-foreign matter with a value of 5.60%. Moreover, the sample Cem-J had the highest red-streaked kernels, with a value of 19.59%, and two other samples (Inp43-K and Inp43-J) had damage-yellow kernel values of 19.98% and 19.56%, respectively.
Rice (O. sativa L.), cultivars, plant genetic resources, PCA, biplot analysis, physical grain quality
Rice (O. sativa L.) genotypes grown in Merauke varied based on their physical grain characteristics. For grain quality, five characteristics met the SNI standard, while the moisture content was below the SNI maximum standard and still requires special attention. Proper harvest and post-harvest practices considerably improved the grain quality, positively impacting the market value.