Abstract
Partial paralysis, leaf malformation, sickle leaf and infective yellowing are diseases of possible virus etiology recorded in different areas where olive is cultivated. Several attempts to reproduce by grafting the symptomatology observed in the field did not give completely satisfactory results. Attempts to isolate and identify the causal agent of these diseases also failed. Only in 1976 was a virus isolated in Italy from an olive tree, cv. Correggiolo, which did not however show any symptoms. The virus was identified as a strain of strawberry latent ringspot nepovirus (SLRV), which is present in Italy on a few other fruit trees (peach, cherry). On olive, SLRV is found in central Italy and has only in one case been associated with a specific malformation of the leaves and fruits. Since this first report, several other viruses have been isolated from olive trees which did not, anyway, present any symptoms of virus disease.