An experiment was carried out in Leonard jars using Latosolic B Terra Roxa and Dark Red Latosol soil samples as inoculum to detect the presence and efficiency of rhizobia able to nodulate cultivar Santa-Rosa of soybean (Glycine max. (L) Merrill). Results have shown that no rhizobia were present in those soils. Rhizobium japonicum with efficiency comparable to a selected strain survived in the same soils, when they were previously cropped with inoculated soybeans.