A case study of infection of rice roots by deleterious fungi and minor pathogenic Pythium species in a paddy fi eld Abstract Roots of rice plants grown in paddy fi elds in a transplant culture system were collected seven times between 8 and 22 weeks after transplanting, for two crop seasons. Rice seedlings grown in a potting medium amended with the collected roots were signifi cantly shorter than those grown in the same medium either without the addition of the roots or amended with pasteurized, collected roots indicating that seedlings were inhibited by heat-labile microorganisms on the collected rice roots. Ninety-fi ve and 172 pure cultures of Pythium spp. and fungi, respectively, were isolated from the rice roots collected 5 or 7.5 weeks after transplanting in the fi elds. Among these microorganisms, Pythium aristosporum inhibited seedling growth in greenhouse experiments, and Acremonium sp., Alternaria sp., Epicoccum nigrum, Fusarium sp., Massarina sp., Penicillium spp., Rhinocladiella sp., Stemphylium sp., Trichocladium sp., and several unidentifi ed fungi inhibited seminal root growth in in vitro experiments. These microorganisms might be involved in the inhibition of seedling growth in soils amended with the rice roots collected from the paddy fi eld. Thus, roots of rice plants at the middle stage of growth transplanted into paddy fi elds can harbor pathogenic or deleterious fungi or Pythium sp(p). The effects of these microorganisms on rice growth in paddy fi elds are discussed.