Abstract: To investigate the effects of phosphorus and potassium management on the quality of northern Japonica rice, we conducted a field experiment with different phosphorus and potassium treatments in Shenyang from 2021 to 2022. Cultivars ‘Shennong 265’ and ‘Liaojing 294’ were used as the test materials. There were two phosphorus application levels: 89.25 kg·hm^-2 (P1) and 120.75 kg·hm^-2 (P2), with a potassium fertilizer operation ratio of 7∶3 (K1) and 8∶2 (K2) for base-tiller fertilizer and panicle fertilizer (with a total amount of 105 kg·hm^-2), respectively. No phosphate and potassium fertilizer application (P0K0) was set as control, resulting in a total of five treatments. We measured nutritional quality, cooking and taste quality, appearance, processing quality, and characteristic rapid visco analyzer (RVA) profile values of the rice at maturity. The application of phosphorus and potassium increased gluten content, total starch content, amylopectin content, brown rice rate, milled rice rate, head rice rate, appearance value, balance degree, taste value, viscosity, setback, peak viscosity, hot viscosity, and final viscosity of both cultivars, but reduced the amylose content, chalk grain rate, chalkiness, disintegration value, and consistence value of both cultivars. Compared with the other treatments, P2K2 treatment increased the appearance, balance degree, taste value, and viscosity of both cultivars, and reduced chalk grain rate and chalkiness. In 2021 and 2022, the taste value of ‘Liaojing 294’ treated with P2K2 significantly increased by 1.18%-20.08%, compared with the other treatments. Peak viscosity of both cultivars was significantly negatively correlated with chalk grain rate and amylose content and significantly positively correlated with appearance, balance degree, viscosity, and taste values. P2K2 treatment can fully leverage the synergistic effects of phosphorus and potassium, synchronously improving rice quality and optimizing certain characteristic RVA profile values of the rice.

Key words: rice quality, RVA profile characteristic value, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, correlation relationship