Factors affecting the responses of rice quality to global warming in the field conditions: a meta-analysis

Global warming has been suggested to have negative impacts on most quality traits of rice; however, factors and how they affect the responses of rice quality to warming still need systematic examination under field conditions.

In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the overall impacts of field warming on grain quality and identify the key factors affecting these impacts, collecting data from 45 published studies with 1316 paired observations. Our results found that warming significantly increased chalkiness degree, chalky rice rate, protein content and breakdown value, but decreased head rice rate and amylose content. Growth stage when warming was imposed had significant impacts on the grain quality responses to warming, with larger responses generally observed at reproductive stage than vegetative stage; besides, warming responses of grain quality also significantly differed among warming patterns and subspecies. Importantly, our results suggest that deterioration of appearance quality under warming tends to decrease with increasing soil fertility. However, with the increasing N and P applications and panicle N percentage, negative responses of milling and appearance qualities to warming become more severe. Additionally, our results suggest that negative responses of appearance quality to warming could be mitigated by increasing K application.

Our present findings should further our understandings of the warming effects on rice quality under field conditions and be helpful in mitigating the negative effects of warming on grain quality by variety selection, amelioration of soil fertility and optimal inorganic fertilizer inputs. © 2025 Society of Chemical Industry.