Abstract
Though one of the most important points in predicting the yield of rice is to discriminate the non-fertilized grains as early as possible, no reliable method for serving it has hitherto been found. As the results of examining histo-chemically the difference between fertilized and non-fertilized grains, the authors have succeeded in discovering the fact that fertilized trains always begin to accumulate starch in their mesocarps at much earlier stage than the stage at which starch begins, to be accumulated in endosperms, while non-fertilized ones never accumulate starch in any circumstances. Basing upon this fact, the authors established a new method by means of "iodine reaction of starch" which enables one to judge fertilized grains from non-fertilized ones as early as 24 hours after anthesis.
