Photo courtesy of U of A System Division of Ag.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. A former graduate student’s research with x-rays has verified a hypothesis by Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station scientists about why rice kernels often break during milling.
Decades of research by scientists in the experiment station’s Rice Processing Program led researchers to hypothesize that uneven moisture content in the kernels during drying causes fissures that crack and break during milling. Research has shown that three or more fissures significantly reduce rice kernels’ commercial value, said Griffiths Atungulu, associate professor of grain processing and post-harvest system engineering for the Agricultural Experiment Station research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.