Evaluation of agronomic traits and storage stability in novel rice cultivar ‘Baromi3’ combining floury endosperm and lipoxygenase 3 deficiency

BACKGROUND: Rice milling characteristics and storage stability are critical traits influencing industrial applications. Floury endosperm rice carrying the flo4-4 allele is valuable for dry milling but exhibits reduced storage stability associated with altered starch structural characteristics. This study developed a novel rice cultivar, 'Baromi3', combining the flo4-4 allele and lipoxygenase 3 (LOX3) deficiency, and evaluated its quality and storage stability. RESULTS: To revitalize the floury endosperm rice industry, 'Baromi3' was developed through marker-assisted breeding. Compared with 'Baromi2', a commercial floury endosperm rice cultivar, 'Baromi3' exhibited a 3 day delay in heading and significantly shorter culm length. Dry-milling characteristics did not differ significantly between the cultivars, indicating that the dry-milling characteristics were preserved in 'Baromi3'. In the storage stability assessment, hexanal content increased progressively with storage duration, although its accumulation pattern varied depending on storage temperature and sample types. 'Baromi3' maintained lower hexanal content than 'Baromi2' under both low- (15 °C) and high-temperature (30 °C) storage conditions. In contrast, rice flour of 'Baromi2' showed a greater increase in hexanal content than rice grain under high-temperature storage, indicating that flour samples were more susceptible to lipid oxidation. These results suggest that LOX3 deficiency suppresses hexanal accumulation and contributes to improved storage stability even with the floury endosperm genetic background. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that 'Baromi3' successfully combines floury endosperm traits with improved storage stability. These characteristics highlight its potential value for dry-milled rice flour production and quality maintenance in the rice-processing industry. © 2026 The Author(s). Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.