Abstract: The effect of seed ageing of 14 Bangladeshi rice cultivars was investigated to aid the identification of rice genotypes tolerant of low temperature during germination. This would facilitate breeding cultivars suitable for direct wet-seeding in the cooler Boro season in Bangladesh. The present study was carried out at the University of Aberdeen, UK during 1999. The results of the experiment on temperature gradient plate at a range of constant temperatures (13.7-37.3oC) revealed a number of cultivars (BR1, KS and KG) were to be of lower physiological quality than the rest. It was therefore, necessary to confirm whether the reason for their relatively poor performance was physiological deterioration. Seed survival curves of all cultivars at 24% moisture content (mc) and 45oC for up to 96 h tested at 21oC showed a clear separation in germination after 48 h ageing. Cultivars BR1, KS and KG were identified as the lowest quality seed lots with 0, 35 and 17% germination, respectively. Cultivar samples had different Ki (initial seed quality) after probit transformation with a range 79.30% (e.g. cv. KG) to 99.36% (e.g. cv. BR29), but surprisingly, had different slopes. The steepest slope was found for cv. BR11 (-0.046) and shallowest of that was for cv. BR24 (-0.017). The rates of germination of the faster germinating cultivars (8 cultivars, around 0.30 seed d-1) declined more rapidly and at 72 h ageing the rates of germination of all cultivars were closer. Cultivars KS and KG had the least rates of germination (around 0.15 seed d-1). Only when the lower quality cultivars (BR1, KS and KG) were included, were significant relationships found between measures of physiological age (48 h ageing germination, Ki and viability period) and final germination at lower temperature. The results of the study suggested that seed quality as well as genotype might be responsible for reducing final germination of cultivars. The present study also revealed that germination of seed lots of 14 rice cultivars in low temperature was influenced more by genotype than seed quality.