Evaluation research of physical characteristics of hybrid rice buds based on principal component analysis

China possesses a wide area of rice cultivation. The rice planting system is complex and differential from different area, such as single season, double season. The kinds of planting rice are various, mainly consisting of indica and japonica rice, and which also are divided into conventional rice, hybrid rice and super hybrid rice, and the physical characteristic between different planting rice is significant or non-significant. In recent years, the research on hybrid rice seeds mainly focuses on variety selection, identification and promotion, nutritional value and processing quality evaluation, physical property measurement, key parameter calibration of bud seed discrete elements and rapid non-destructive classification among rice varieties. The research on the physical property evaluation of rice seeds currently lacks a kind of objective, scientific, effective and practical evaluation methods. The physical properties of hybrid rice generally have many parameters, such as 1 000-grain weight, density, water content, geometric size, porosity, tribological properties, rheological properties, thermal properties, optical properties, electrical properties and pulverization properties. The research and evaluation of the physical characteristics of hybrid rice buds are closely related to the mechanized production of rice. In order to systematically study and quantitatively evaluate the physical characteristics of hybrid rice buds, 9 kinds of hybrid rice produced in south China area were selected as raw materials to determine eight physical indexes, including moisture content, 1 000-grain weight, sliding friction angle, angle of repose α, angle of repose β, the bud length, the three-axis arithmetic mean particle size and the hardness. The principal component analysis method was employed to simplify the physical property index and establish the scientific evaluation system, and the comprehensive score of each sample was obtained. The results showed that the physical index of different samples was significantly different, and the correlation between the different physical properties of the samples was also represented. The 1 000-grain weight was significantly positive correlated with the angle of repose α and the angle of repose β; the triaxial arithmetic mean particle size was positive correlated between the angle of repose α and the angle of repose β remarkably; the angle of repose α is also obviously positive correlated with the angle of repose β. 1 000-grain weight was positively correlated with water content, triaxial arithmetic mean particle size and sliding friction angle; water content was positively correlated with bud length; bud length was positively correlated with resting angle α, resting angle β and triaxial arithmetic mean particle size. Principal component analysis method was utilized to extract the first three principal component factors, and the cumulative contribution rate reached 80%. The first three principal component factors could represent most of the original eight physical indexes with well representativeness and objectivity, and obtained the evaluation formula Z=0.422Z1+0.205Z2+0.178Z3 to calculate the comprehensive score of the physical characteristics of hybrid rice buds. In this study, the physical characteristics of hybrid rice buds were comprehensively evaluated based on principal component analysis method, which provided a new method for the scientific evaluation of the physical characteristics of hybrid rice buds, and also provided theoretical data basis for the design and optimization of operating parameters of precision rice seeder in the future.