When I first became aware of the virus issue, of course I wanted roses without it. I sought plants of the varieties I wanted to grow and study which were uninfected. They didn’t exist. I chose to grow the varieties anyway. Given the choice, I will take clean stock any day, but we are seldom given that choice.
I began volunteering at The Huntington about 1983. I spent the years playing there propagating roses for the sales and gardens and making sure the odd and rare things were reproduced to prevent their loss. I studied the main garden and Study Plot thoroughly. I observed classic virus symptoms everywhere, and it wasn’t the fault of the location nor anyone there. Old, commercially obtained plants were infected. Collected “found” roses from old gardens all over displayed symptoms. I wandered Descanso and The Arboretum and observed the same symptoms in their gardens. I visited public gardens in Northern California and in San Diego as well as all the private gardens which opened to me through that association. I wandered large, commercial rose sources; I wandered fields in Wasco and got to wander around in Roses of Yesterday and Today’s holding area at their home site. The same symptoms I observed on line and in the public gardens and all the private gardens were prominent in the fields and nurseries, also.
I honestly believe it is naive to think it is possible to find clean stock of most varieties anywhere. The issue has been so wide-spead, Harkness, in is wonderful book, “Roses”, comments that British nurserymen complained of American sources spreading at abroad, leading one “prominent American nuseryman to comment that he felt the patterened leaves added a decorative effect” to the plants. That was written in 1970. Gregg Lowery told me years ago, he and Philip Robinson observed wide spread symptoms in the Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park on one of their visits.
Commercial production has always been driven by cost cutting. It is the nature of the world and we all do it in all of our pursuits. We HAVE to. The common method of propagation was, for many decades, to root the tops of last year’s budded root stocks, for next year’s plants. That’s how the viruses became so wide spread and how so many became infected with multiple viruses. Even after the issue became “popular” and the larger concerns began advertising their clean-up efforts, it continued. Not to point fingers nor to trash anyone, particularly because I respect his work and like the man, but when Flutterbye, a Tom Carruth creation, came out from his employer, Week’s Roses, it was infected. Week’s created it and they introduced it. Their stock was infected. When asked about it, the response was, “the budders ran out of root stock and used what they had on hand”. Excuse me? I have worked several seasons with Ashdown in Wasco, and visited many times. That isn’t how it works.
As a producer, YOU supply the root stock material. YOU supply the bud sticks. Irish Farms, the labor supplier, provides people who are skilled in whatever labor you require. They take what YOU give them and do what you tell them to do with it. THEY do not have any plant materials available to them other than what YOU hand them. Irish Farms is literally a collective of farm workers. They bud, they weed, they clean the plants and they harvest them. They only supply people and tools. Virus was a hot issue and the usual methods of transmission were well known, yet new roses from reputable sources continued and continue to arrive infected.
I have an acquaintance here in Southern California. She is of the mentality, “absence of light black and Resurrection White”, no gray areas in anything. She was, for many years, a rabid exhibitor, to the point of having multiple florist freezers in her home to hold her blooms for shows. She had dozens of portable gazebos to move around her garden to protect the buds as they formed. She was determined to grow uninfected varieties only as symptoms would disqualify her entries. J&P had begun their VI program and reserved the VI plants for specific states as the laws in those states had changed, making it illegal to supply virused stock across their state lines. She badgered J&P for their VI stock, then had it tested. Surprise! The results were that the VI stock was infected with the specific viruses tested for. She loosed her wrath on J&P and the PhD who ran the VI program. They replaced the plants, which, in turn, tested positive. When she contacted J&P again, she was told the program had been dismantled and the woman PhD in charge, reassigned as they found, even when grown in “sealed greenhouses with no possibility of spread, the viruses spontaneously regenerated”. They refused to replace the stock a second time.
J&P continued to advertise their VI stock until their demise, at least in wholesale their catalogs. Whether they were actually uninfected or not, who actually knows?
I know, from studying old rose catalogs from the thirties to the seventies, how roses traveled from the major sources, through the “second line” sources, and, often, eventually through Armstrong Roses to Roses of Yesterday and Today. I also have seen how Armstrong Nurseries, for decades the introducer of all the AARS winners, and Roses of Yesterday and Today, used the same contract budder in Wasco. He had the largest catalog of roses under production and his prices were usually the lowest for finished product. From personal observation, because I wanted to SEE every one and grow as many as I could, AARS winners came to market infected. Armstrong regularly sent out infected stock. When Bear Creek bought Armstrong years ago, John Walden, formerly Keith Zary’s assistant at the J&P R&D facility in Somis, CA, stated when visiting my old Newhall garden that if I thought the stock I saw was bad, I should have seen what they had in the Armstrong fields when J&P took over. He said it was terribly infected, so badly so they had to burn the stock. J&P bought Armstrong to get their patents. Purple Tiger was an Armstrong creation and one of the worst plants I’d grown in years. He laughed and said if I thought it was bad now, I should have seen it before they “cleaned it up!”
More popular modern varieties and most OGRs filtered down through the other sources, finally into Armstrong’s catalog and eventually through Roses of Yesterday and Today before being cataloged only by specialty sources. Pour over old catalogs and you can watch the progression time and again. Even if other producers hadn’t infected them, the final two most certainly did. I have often heard conjecture that American virus spread originated in the Armstrong fields and radiated out from there. From observation, I believe it.
Making things worse, Griffith Buck was a dear friend of Dorothy Stemler and Patricia Wiley, owners and operators of Roses of Yesterday and Today. ROYAT’s virus type was so distinctive, it was DNA mapped and tracked! 99% of Buck’s roses were produced and introduced by ROYAT. His employer, Iowa State University, seemed to never take interest in his work, until after his death. Then, they sent out letters to everyone in the Combined Rose List who offered any Buck roses demanding royalties for their “proprietary material”, the vast majority having never been patented.
I know no one wants infected plants. I don’t. From the above, there IS a chance of virus through seed. From other research, virus transmission is possible through pollen. Root grafting occurs under ground spreading it further. Roses, like people, can remain asymptomatic of viruses for many years.
Many specialty nurseries, and you can determine which simply by reading their sites, have routinely stated “our stock is clean as we regularly rough out any plant which shows symptoms”. THAT’S assuring! One of the worst offenders of this statement, bought many dozens of own root plants I helped produce while volunteering at The Huntington back in the 80s, from stock I KNOW was infected. Miraculously, many of those varieties which they bought in April of that year from that sale, made their debuts in their catalog as VIRUS FREE by October of the same year. Yet, none of these varieties ever appeared on either Davis’ or Florida State’s list of VI cleaned stock.
I’ve wondered if producing own root plants as Sequoia did for decades might have had similar results to the heat treatment they were grown under when cleaning up viruses. Summer conditions in their greenhouses were very frequently highs of 120 degrees F with 100% humidity. Roses grew extremely quickly and were often reproduced from that new growth. They rooted, often in days and when budded, produced worthwhile plants in a matter of weeks. Could that accelerated growth, under those extreme heat conditions have resulted in the plants out growing the viruses as supposedly occurs in the heat treatment?
Some varieties demonstrate symptoms very easily. Mr. Lincoln has often been used to test for infection. Others seldom, if ever show it. Culture and climate play crucial roles in symptom expression. For years, there was an enormous plant of the old HT, Autumn, at The Huntington. Its dark leaves were regularly tortoise shell patterned with obvious infection, yet it grew vigorously and flowered continuously. It shouldn’t be surprising, as even people vary greatly in how various viruses affect them. There are cases of people being infected with HIV for long periods, but who seem to never be affected by it, while others succumb and die quickly.
Bottom line, you grow roses, you will have virus. Whether you ever see it or not, it’s going to be there. Growing roses is like dating, whether or not you can SEE any symptoms of disease, you’d better proceed as if it is there!