From naturally infected barley plants two types of barley yellow mosaic viruses have been isolated in Federal Republic of Germany. Both are identical in morphology, showing a bimodal length distribution (270–289 nm and 568–600 nm), and in symptomatology. Both induce conspicuous cytoplasmic inclusions of the pinwheel type and laminated aggregates, as well as threedimensional crystal‐like arrays of membrane material. The types differ, however, in buoyant density, serology, and transmissibility. One is transmissible by soil as well as mechanically (BaYMV‐M), and does not react with a Japanese antiserum to the Japanese virus (BaYMV‐J). The other type (BaYMV‐NM) is only transmissible by soil and reacts with BaYMV‐J‐antiserum. From mechanically infected plants BaYMV‐M was purified, and an antiserum was produced, from soil‐infected plants only mixtured BaYMV‐NM and ‐M could be obtained. BaYMV‐NM prevailed during winter, but with rising temperatures in spring BaYMV‐M was predominant.
BaYMV‐M and the ‐M‐NM mixture had each two species of nucleic acids (2.7–2.8 × 106 and 1.4–1.5 × 106 d) and two major protein subunit bands were found in SDS‐PAGE (35–36 × 103 and c. 29 × 103 d).