A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of cultivar and grain position on rice quality under different water management treatments. Water treatments significantly affected all quality traits in the study, except alkali digestibility (AD). There were significant interactions of water treatment by grain position and genotype for brown rice rate (BRR), chalky grain rate (CGR) and amylose content (AC), and interactions of grain position by water treatment and cultivar for head milled ricerate (HMRR). The interaction of water treatment by genotype for protein content (PC) was also significant. Of all variance components, water treatment ranked the highest for PC. Similarly grain position was ranked the highest for AC, BRR, CGR and HMRR. In comparison with wet cultivation, plastic-film mulched cultivation had significantly lower BRR, HMRR, CGR and higher PC. There were marked differences in milled quality, appearance and AD among differently positioned grains within a spike. For appearance and PC, the difference between plastic-film mulched cultivation and wet cultivation was greater for upland rice than paddy rice. For milled and cooking-eating quality, the difference between plastic-film mulched cultivation and wet cultivation was greater for the good quality paddy rice than the upland rice and the poor quality paddy rice. In plastic-film mulched cultivation, top grains showed lower milled quality and PC. While in wet cultivation, the opposite result was seen. With the decrease in soil water content, BRR and appearance showed increased and decreased differences among grains within a spike, respectively. The results indicate the possibility of improving rice quality by use of better water management and suitable cultivars. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.