Rice seed endophytic microbiome, cultivars Poongar and ADT37, control and PEG-treated

16S rRNA V3-V4 amplicon sequencing of rice seed endophytic microbiome. DNA was extracted from surface-sterilized seeds of traditional landrace Poongar and modern cultivar ADT37, subjected to drought stress with 15% polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000) or maintained as controls. Libraries were prepared using Illumina barcoded adapters and sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq v3 platform with a 2 x 300 bp paired-end kit. Raw reads were processed with QIIME2, quality-checked, and analyzed using the SILVA 16S rRNA database. This project investigates the composition and diversity of seed endophytic bacterial communities in rice under PEG-induced drought stress.