In the present paper, the spectral measurements of maize population samples were researched so as to identify their authenticity. Diffuse reflectance and transmittance measure modes were used to collect spectral data of 8 maize varieties. DPLS-DA was used to compress pretreated data. The recognition models of eight maize varieties were built based on biomimetic pattern recognition (BPR). The average correct recognition rate and average correct rejection rate of identification models built by two modes were calculated. The average recognition rate and rejection rate of diffuse reflectance method reached 94.50% and 96.71%, and those of transmittance method reached 98.5% and 98.00%, respectively. Both of them met the requirements of maize preliminary screening., and the recognition rate and rejection rate of transmittance method are higher than diffuse reflectance method by 4% and 1.3% respectively.