Seed Endophytic Microbial Populations between Organically and Conventionally Grown Rice are Taxonomically and Functionally Different

In this study, we characterized the endophytic microbial communities in seeds of rice grown under organic and conventional management through culture-dependent and independent analyses. The SSU-based metabarcoding, targeting the V4 regions of 16S rRNA and ITS-based region was used in the identification of bacterial taxa and fungal taxa, respectively. The cultivable bacterial isolates were also identified by the full length 16S rRNA gene. These culturable bacteria were screened for their antagonistic activities against rice pathogens, Marasmius graminum and Rhizoctonia solani AG1, AG4, and AG11. Our results suggests that there is significant difference in the endophytic microbial populations in rice seeds grown under organic and conventional management.