Grains display characteristics of both elastic bodies and viscous fluids when they are subjected to mechanical treatments in harvesting, handling, and processing. This viscoelastic behavior of grains when mechanically stressed must be fully understood to establish maximum machine efficiency and have a minimum degree of grain damage and the highest quality of the final product. The studies were conducted to examine the effect of the moisture content, the loading rate and the initial deformation on the stress relaxation behavior of whole kernel of rough rice, and develop the rheological model to represent its stress relaxation behavior. The following results were obtained from the study. 1. Moisture content had the greatest influence on the initial portion of the relaxation curve. With elapsing time the lower moisture content resulted in the lower residual stress for the Japonica-type rough rice and vice versa for the Indica-type rough rice. But within the ranges of moisture content tested, the degree of stress relaxation per unit strain on the Indica-type rough rice was a little higher than those on the Japonica-type rough rice. 2. The slower loading rate resulted in less initial stress. The decreasing trend of residual stress for all the samples tested with increasing loading rate was shown. 3. The higher initial deformation for all the samples resulted in less initial stress. The increasing of amount of stress relaxation per unit strain with increase of initial stress indicated that viscoelastic properties of rough rice depended not only upon duration of load applied but also initial stress applied. This means that rough rice is nonlinear viscoelastic material. 4. The compression stress relaxation properties of rough rice kernel can be described by a generalized Maxwell model representing by the Maxwell elements.