The need of rice cultivars discrimination led to this study in which physical, physiological and chemical characteristics of seeds and seedlings were considered as distinguishing traits. The techniques were selected based on precision, reproducibility, simplicity, rapidity and execution's cost. All the physical and physiological characteristics of seeds and seedlings were useful; frequently, just one form of evaluation did not characterize a cultivar, but the combination of different characteristics made it possible allowing anaccurate discrimination. The reaction to phenol, and the electrophoretic technique here utilized were not efficient in the cultivars discrimination.
rice; Oryza sativa L.; seed; seedling; cultivars; identification