We found that seeds of the rice cultivars CT6919, CAMBA, IRGA 417, and El Paso 144, contain a variety of mesophilic culturable bacteria beneath their seed coats, averaging 6×106 CFU/g of seeds (Fig. 1). The bacterial load differed qualitatively for each rice cultivar (Fig. 1C), which may reflect the plant specific selection of endophytes, as recently suggested by molecular studies of rice root endophytes (Hardoim et al., 2011). The use of rich medium, the incubation temperature (28°C), and the short incubation period (24-48 h) most probably resulted in an underestimation of the amount and diversity of culturable bacteria present in the rice varieties studied here (Okunishi et al., 2005).