3.1. Variation in Proximate Composition among the Rice
Cultivars
The result of the proximate composition observed among
the 20 cultivars is as shown in Table 1. The carbohydrate
content in the varieties ranged between 51.50 - 86.92 % with
a mean value of 82.86 ± 7.52 %. Apart from one of the newly
introduced hybrid rice variety “E4197” which had a very low
carbohydrate percentage, virtually all the rice varieties have
appreciably high carbohydrate content (Table 1). The
variation in values for carbohydrate among the varieties was
statistically significant (P = 0.0001) with real differences
occurring among the varieties (LSD0.05) in their carbohydrate
content. A wide range of values (3.66 – 35.70 %) were
observed for moisture content among the 20 varieties,
Table 1. Variation in Proximate Composition observed in the 20 Rice Varieties