“…The increase in protein accumulation was 4.7% and 14.8% under MS and SS, respectively, which are significantly lower than the increase in protein content (21.0% and 43.9% under MS and SS, respectively), indicating that the increase was only a concentration effect due to the severe decrease in grain weight (13.5% and 20.2% under MS and SS, respectively) and starch content (9.5% and 16.2% under MS and SS, respectively). Similar results have been observed when waxy maize plants suffer from adversities, such as high temperature (Lu, Sun, Yan, et al, ), drought (Lu, Cai, Zhao, Shen, & Lu, ), or shading (Yang, Shi, et al, ) during grain filling. Starch exists in the form of granules in grains.…”