Rose Rosette Disease has potential for considerable economic impact in the nursery industry. On Friday of last week, the American Nursery & Landscape Association went public with a new page devoted to information about RRD. Paul Olsen found it, and sent me a link.
It contains links to videos and other documents from the recent RRD webinar and the April RRD “summit”–as well as info sheets from some university extension services.
The recent hullabaloo about RRD seems contrived to me. It has been around for a long time which I know from direct experience with it starting from the early 1980’s so why all of the sudden interest?
IMHO RRD’s potential economic effect is no worse than it was decades ago and may actually be less now due to the great decline in use of multiflora rootstocks - a big source of infection - as well as the huge decline in total numbers of grafted roses in general.
I think that the effect of accumulated viruses in product coming out of the Texas rose industry has done much more damage to the rose market than RRD will ever do.
>>The recent hullabaloo about RRD seems contrived to me. It has been around for a long time which I know from direct experience with it starting from the early 1980’s so why all of the sudden interest?
Yes, the disease has been around for a long time, but it had not affected as much of the US as it has now. When more people are affected, they contrive to make a bigger noise.
>>IMHO
Perhaps you could mention some figures to back up that honest opinion.
>>RRD’s potential economic effect is no worse than it was decades ago and may actually be less now due to the great decline in use of multiflora rootstocks - a big source of infection - as well as the huge decline in total numbers of grafted roses in general.
As far as I know, RRD is not caused by infections carried in rootstock. A multiflora rootstock (or any other) infected with RRD would not produce a salable plant. The infection is spread by the eriophyid mite, and own-root plants are susceptible. Grafting is not a factor in the spread of RRD.
>>I think that the effect of accumulated viruses in product coming out of the Texas rose industry has done much more damage to the rose market than RRD will ever do.
There is no question that virused plants have damaged the rose market. And I would add to that, with special reference to the Texas rose industry, that mislabeled plants have damaged consumers’ faith in the rose industry. But “ever” is a long time.
As far as I know, RRD is not caused by infections carried in rootstock.
See
http://www.plantpath.ksu.edu/doc1248.ashx.
Grafting is not a factor in the spread of RRD.
It was in the good old days. I lost a whole bunch of first year bare root plants from it in '83 and '84.
“ever” is a long time.
and hope springs eternal. Maybe they’ll plant sugar beets and leave roses to growers who care enough to use VID stock and to read their own labels. Actually, I’m surprised nobody has figured out that the loses to viruses are big enough to add up to a class action tort. I’ll bet that sooner or later somebody sues the big boxes.
>>>>As far as I know, RRD is not caused by infections carried in rootstock.
You forgot the rest of what I said: A multiflora rootstock (or any other) infected with RRD would not produce a salable plant. Keeping things in context is important in the interpretation of what is said.
It’s all very fine to transmit RRD from an infected rootstock, but any plant grown from a graft on a rootstock infected at the time of grafting would not grow well enough to be salable. The symptoms would appear before harvest. Nobody (well, probably nobody) is going to buy a tiny and misshapen plant, as any two-year plant is going to be if the rootstock were infected with RRD at the time of grafting.
_>>See
http://www.plantpath.ksu.edu/doc1248.ashx._[/i]
The text to which you refer is
Rose rosette also can be spread or transmitted by grafting.
In fact, graft transmission tests have shown that the disease
may be present or reside in the roots of multiflora roses.
Any remaining roots may produce infected shoots in
18 months or later, which can serve as a source of inoculum
for noninfected roses.
It has no relevance to the point I was making. For the reason already mentioned, RRD would not be spread in this way.
Grafting is not a factor in the spread of RRD.
>>It was in the good old days. I lost a whole bunch of first year bare root plants from it in '83 and '84.
Probably the RRD was in the plants when you got them. Did you not notice that they didn’t look right? If the plants looked strong, maybe they had been infected only shortly before harvest. It’s possible for a plant to be infected in the year it’s harvested and shipped. The presence of RRD in the plants does not demonstrate that the RRD is related in any way to their being grafted.
Your loss of the plants is good evidence of the seriousness of the RRD problem.