New Dawn, Basye's Blueberry, etc. as rootstock?

I grow a majority of my roses on their own roots. So why I’m intrested? I don’t know. I think it would be a good question.

What other roses would be good rootstock? Somebody said New Dawn could be a candidate, and I heard that TAMU is exploring BB as a rootstock besides as a garden plant and breeding material. When I moved BB, the roots were especially vigorous for a very small plant.

The Fairy, Ballerina and Dortmund come to mind. Actually, that brings up sort of a weird idea. They say its bad to graft miniatures for whatever reasons (Im not a mini person). So, what if a miniature was grafted onto an extremely vigorous polyantha rootstock? Would there be any pro’s or con’s in doing so (other than manual labor)?

I know that there are minis out there that are grafted. The one reason I know that minis aren’t usually grafted is that they are easy to propogate from steam. I have a rose that I identified as Stars n’ Stripes that is grafted onto rootstock.

Here in Europe minis are always grafted as all garden roses on the usual rootstocks: canina selections or multiflora seedlings.

As you know grafted roses are a lot bigger than own roots even if here we do not like them as big as those grown in California.

As a result of grafting on seedlings viruses are not prevalent for european garden roses.

Roses for the cut flower industry are either grafted on rootstock cuttings: odorata, manetti, natal briar… (with the usual virus problems) or… own rooted.

Cutting rootstock often convey non obvious viruses as do the scion. There are many different rose viruses and many strains of each being more or less virulent and more or less obvious. Many are not visible and not very harmfull when alone. Very damaging are the more virulent strains and more often the combined action of two or more different not so virulent viruses.

Virus buildup is readily done using cloned rootstocks that combinate theyr viruses with the scion ones.

Cleaning rootstocks is an answer… but contamination a fatality as viruses are insect, nematodes and grafting or cutting tools transmitted.

Regards

Pierre Rutten

Three years ago I decided to challenge the popular perception that Miniatures grow rank and overly robust when grafted to a rootstock variety. I budded ‘Oakington Ruby’, a fairly vigorous China hybrid, onto R. multiflora. The result? I have this plant and another plant of the same age (and variety) grown from a cutting, and they are identical in size and performance. Naturally, an experiment using only one test plant means little, but what I have observed doesn’t uphold the idea of Miniatures growing rank on a strong rootstock.

As Pierre has pointed out, the Europeans graft their Miniatures as a rule. Would this be a common practice if it resulted in Miniatures that grew bigger than they are supposed to?

Regards,

Paul

Paul wrote

Well I have to add that garden miniatures are not at all fashionable this side of the ocean. No specialized nurseries, few vars available. Most US bred vars even the better ones are never sold in Europe. Only in England there is a market for the larger minis they call “Patioroses”.

Friendly yours

Pierre