**4. Conclusions**

In this paper, we investigated the effect of the long-term storage on the multiscale structure and physicochemical properties of rice under granary conditions. The results showed that the fatty acid value and the electrical conductivity of rice increased, whereas its germination rate decreased significantly. The straight-chain starch content first increased and then decreased with the storage time extending. The same tendency occurred in the long-branched chain of branched starch, the short-range orderliness and the degree of double helix structure. However, the pasting temperature had an opposite trend. Simultaneously, the starch granule suffered from breakage, along with the peak viscosity and disintegration value of rice starch decreasing. Some other indicators, such as relative crystallinity, enthalpy, hardness, viscosity and luster, also exerted the corresponding variation. All the results indicates that the structure of rice starch changed significantly after 2-year storage, accompanied by the transformed physicochemical properties. Therefore, to

maintain rice with a fair quality, it should be stored under suitable granary conditions for no more than two years. However, most of the results are the description of rice quality and starch variation; they are not the deep mechanism. Thus, if we want to know the reason of the transformation, the changes of their biochemicals, genes and chemical bonds should also be studied in the next studies.

**Author Contributions:** Methodology, S.L.; software, S.L.; validation, D.P.; formal analysis, K.W.; investigation, M.Q.; resources, Z.Q.; data curation, X.L.; writing—original draft preparation, H.H.; writing—review and editing, J.Z.; visualization, S.L.; supervision, X.L.; project administration, H.H.; funding acquisition, J.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** Please add: This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, youth program, gran<sup>t</sup> number is No. 32102103; Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Lingyan Research Plan Program, gran<sup>t</sup> number is No. 2022C020202.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
