Chlorotic symptoms (ring, spots, lines and a mosaic pattern) appeared on the leaves of previously disease-free kiwifruit, Actinidia deliciosa (A.Chev.) C.F.Liang and A. Ferguson, that had been grafted in 1987 onto A. polygama in a search for nematode-resistant rootstocks. We suspected that these symptoms were due to a pathogen that was carried without visible expression by wild A. polygama plants in Japan. Further experiments confirmed the transmission of these symptoms to 8 varieties of kiwifruit, with half showing symptoms one year after grafting and all within 2 years of grafting. This disease has not previously been recorded from kiwifruit.