Species work is very important. There are many rarely explored species with a lot of potential to bring health and new traits. I do appreciate the people who are bringing out these genes in their work. I just wanted to clarify that.
I agree Charles but I think too there are many species that are probably not much better than those already present in the modern rose genome.
We have a local collector that acquired a good number of species I had never heard of. I was excited to see them but was disappointed to find many seem to be variations of multiflora.
I was also disappointed to find one of the most promising to my mind, “R. bhutan”, mildews badly here.
R. clinophylla itself will mildew here if air circulation is restricted.
Finding a truly disease resistant species is just as challenging as finding a disease resistant modern rose and even then the resistance may only be localized as has been witnessed by those who have grown Knock Out or Baby Love in certain climates.
No rose is ideally adapted to every climate.
The best we can hope for is to breed a rose that is disease resistant in a particular region.