Oryza sativa L.

Rice is a cereal of the family Poaceae or Gramineae grown in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate fruit or caryopsis, rich in starch. It means all the plants of the genus Oryza, including two species are cultivated: Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrima, rice or Casamance.

Rice is a fundamental element of the diet of many populations of the world including Asia and Africa. This is the first global cereal for human consumption, the second after maize for the tonnage harvested. Rice is the foundation of Asian cuisine, including Chinese and Indian. In Europe it is grown in the Po plain (Italy), in the Camargue (France), Spain, Russia, Greece, Portugal, Ukraine and Bulgaria.

Rice is cultivated in various ways. Rainfed rice without flooding the field, differs from the flooded rice where the water level is not controlled, and irrigated rice production and the availability of water and its level is controlled by the grower. A field-grown rice is called paddy.

Depending on the farmers, you get white rice (China, India, France), rice cargo (China), yellow (Iran), purple (Laos), glutinous rice (China, Indonesia, Laos) ... consumed in grain, in dough, soup, and dessert (rice pudding) for example.

Rice is an annual plant with glabrous erect or prostrate stubble height vary from less than one meter to five meters for floating rice. This plant is susceptible to tillering, forming a bouquet of stems, fibrous roots. Flowers in spikelets uniflorous are grouped into panicles 20 to 30 cm, erect or pending. The fruit is a caryopsis glumelles wrapped in two big, tough and adherent, the whole forming the paddy. The density of raw white rice in bulk is about 0.9g/cm3.

Depending on the texture of the caryopsis, there are varieties ordinary integument to white, more often, or red, or glutinous (sticky rice or sweet rice). The African rice varieties are generally red husk.