This study was conducted to investigate the occurrence of Soil borne wheat mosaic virus(SbWMV) in barley fields in Korea and to examine the host pathogenicity of SbWMV. By using the ELISA test, SbWMV was detected in the six regions : Suwon, Milyang, Jinju, Youngkwang, Iksan, and Chonju. SbWMV was isolated from the two strains, Albori strain from Jinju and Eunpamil strain from Milyang. SbWMV was collected from leaves showing mosaic, yellowing and necrosis stripes. SbWMV was inoculated mechanically on 1∼1.5 leaf stages with leaf-rubbing to identify the host pathogenicity of 36 Korean barley cultivars, a wheat cultivar, two rye cultivars, three Japanese barley cultivars and Chenopodium amaranticola. Viral sympoms of inoculated leaves appeared on moulted loaves about 4 to 6 weeks of inoculation. Baegdong and Tapgolbori, infected from Albori strain and Eunpamil strain infected from Samdobori showed much higher susceptibility than C. amaranticola and C. quinoa which showed ring spots and chlorotic spots respectively. Virus particles were observed by the electron microscope. They were rod-shapes, which are bipartite, of 142 nm or 281 nm in length with 20 nm diameter on infected leaves. Specific detection and identification of SbWMV was set up using the RT-PCR. PCR fragments of SbWMV(0.5kb) were obtained by using the designed primers for SbWMV RNA 2.