Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) RNA which has been shown to contain an internal polyadenylate sequence (Agranovsky, Dolja, Gorbulev, Kozlov, and Atabekov, "Virology", 113, 114-187, 1981; Agranovsky, Dolja, and Atabekov, "Virology," 119, 51-58, 1982) was resolved into oligo(dT)-cellulose-bound [poly(A)+] and unbound [poly(A)-] fractions. Individual RNAs of all strains tested (i.e., those with two-, three-, or four-components) differentially responded to affinity chromatography. Thus, in all cases the poly(A)+ fraction was dramatically enriched in RNA 1 whereas RNA 2 was found mostly in the poly(A)- fraction. RNA 3 was distributed approximately equally between poly(A)+ and poly(A)- fractions. The bulk of RNA 4 was in the poly(A)- fraction. The poly(A) length spectra in total, poly(A)+, and poly(A)- BSMV RNA fractions were compared. The length of poly(A) in total BSMV RNA was 8 to 40 residues. Fragments of 19 to 40 residues and probably longer were predominant in the poly(A)+ RNA fraction. The poly(A)- fraction contained tracts having not more than approximately 25 adenylate residues, with the bulk of the tracts having 12 or fewer residues.