The Correlation of Inorganic Anion Contents in Rice and Its Soils Based on Four Geographical Origin

Abstract

The determination of the geographical origin of foodstuffs is becoming of increasing interest to consumers and producers since it may be used as a criterion to certify quality and typicality. The correlation of inorganic anion contents in rice and its origin soils was studied in this paper, and the inorganic anion contents were used to identification the rice geographical origin. The contents of F−, Cl−, NO2 −, NO3 −, and SO4 2− in rice samples and soil samples from four provinces of China were analyzed by ion chromatography. The result of variance analysis and correlation analysis demonstrated that there is significant difference in the contents for F−, Cl−, NO2 −, NO3 −, and SO4 2− in the rice samples from four provinces, and the anions in rice are closely connected with the anions in soil. The predictions of geographic origin made by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) based on anions gave an overall correct classification rate of 100 % and cross-validation rate of 96.9 %. The correct rate of Q-type hierarchical cluster analysis (Q-type CA) was 81.3 %. These results demonstrate the usefulness of multi-anion fingerprints as indicators for authenticating the geographical origin of the four famous brand rices.