and Italy: rose wilt virus.
Thanks Don. It’s always amazed me how no imports from New Zealand could be permitted, yet J&P apparently had little difficulty in bringing in new McGredy varieites from there.
Sam himself said explicitly he did not obey to import restrictions sending budding eyes in simple envelope.
Those days here are over. I’m told of one nursery who didn’t follow these new guidelines has been fined $30,000 by the USDA. Too rich for MY blood!
This is in the same vane. When I was in England 5 years ago at David Austins nusery he told me we could not direct import from there because a girl was doing her PhD on some plant and theroired that SOD(Sudden Oak Death) could be transmitted by the roses so they are either going via South Africa or Japan now to gert to us here in Oz
hmmm… there are too many inconsistencies here.
The cause of rose wilt has not been determined with any certainty; however, there is a reported similarity between rose curl virus and rose wilt virus so the virus could already be in the U.S. under a different name. Given there are no endemic rose species in the Southern Hemisphere it probably didn’t originate here in the first place unless an intergeneric transmission occurred with something like our native rubus sp. or from one of our other native species within the Rosaceae family. The virus has not been shown to be transmitted through any other means except by budding or contact with infected callous material in the soil and has not been shown to be transmitted via seed or pollen to seedlings… they recommend using seedling multiflora as understocks and soil-borne, or otherwise, vectors have not been found. Aphid transmission was not confirmed. We can import VI understocks from the U.S. and so could bud new seedlings onto it and then send it back or send budwood from unworked seedlings over instead. Symptoms appear to abate when ambient temperatures increase and so would possibly be a candidate for thermal therapy to create indexed export material. I’m thinking that there is more to this than just a quarantine issue. There are already Australian roses in the U.S. from Alistar Clark and Frank Reithmuller and the Grieve reference dates back to 1931 which was well within the time period Alistar Clark was breeding roses and sending roses to the U.S. to participate in U.S. trials (e.g. ‘Cherub’ (1923) was sent over in 1933 to Portland , Oregon, where it received a silver medal) . We can still get rose CV INTO Australia despite things like Sudden Oak Death Syndrome being in the U.S. (though this is a fungus, not a virus). Given that rose material entering Australia must go into quarantine as budwood and be grafted by quarantine staff onto VI understocks and grown for several years in quarantine in which time they are tested several times using ELISA to test for certain viruses and disinfected with various chemical compounds, surely, if the U.S. REALLY wanted to get one of our roses they could do it with similar procedures especially since that paper indicates it is possible to procure virus free propagating material even from infected plants if environmental and cultural conditions don’t support virus replication. It’s probably more about monopoly than anything else if they are being really honest about it with vested interests in the U.S. and here (importers) perpetuating it. In more than 30 years of growing roses here I have yet to actually see rose wilt virus… RMV on the other hand… another one that got through our quarantine from o/s. We can export to places like the E.U. (see: http://www.daff.gov.au/micor/plants) so they may end up in the U.S. via these alternate routes anyway.
Sudden Oak Death isnt a virus or fungus. It is related to downy mildew, iirc.
Downy Mildew = fungus too… SOD = phytophera sp.
Er, correct. I was visualizing the wrong one in my mind.
I was mostly concerned with this, since it is confusing and new-ish:
“We can still get rose CV INTO Australia despite things like Sudden Oak Death Syndrome being in the U.S. (though this is a fungus, not a virus).”
That entire spectrum of diseases is still rather new and confusing, because it is highly diverse in its habitat and difficult/tricky to eradicate.
When Alistar Clark and Frank Reithmuller sent material to the US there would not have been such strick conditions IMO.
@Simon, " another one that got through our quarantine from o/s". Which one got through
Rose Mosaic Virus.
The group of viruses collectively known as Rose Mosaic Virus. However it occurred, we “gave it” to the world. It had been known of since the early 1920s and had been written of as 'infectious chlorosis" in the early ARS annuals until it became understood it was a transmissible collection of plant viruses.
I first read of Rose Wilt in the mid eighties. Then, it was considered to be a collection of symptoms easily explained by known pathogens which were not unknown in this country, from the popular press I read at the time. It was also commonly believed that the continued restrictions against Oz, Italy, Australia, etc., were desirable particularly for the benefit of J&P as it prevented anyone from importing any McGredy material and competing against them with it. There were many “right of first refusal” type agreements in place at the time as well as payments to prevent release. It was common for one firm to pay you estimated royalties to prevent release of your variety in their market. I know Ralph collected quite a few in his days from foreign agents. J&P obtained Kordes and McGredy material for release, much of it being grown at their Somis R&D facility. I know of one local rosarian who greatly wanted a particular Kordes rose, Flamingo, if I recall correctly. She knew Keith Zary and he gave her a plant of it. They grew it for testing and breeding, but it had not been introduced in the US by anyone at that time. Many they tested were never released, but Kordes and I’m sure McGredy, received estimated or contracted amount royalties to permit them to not be released to prevent competition with J&P raised roses.
That was about the time the gentleman who reportedly had acted as Hortico’s agent, procuring “cheap, Eastern European bare roots” for Hortico to ship as their production, circulated a letter to many nurseries and gardens listed in Combined Rose List. The story went that he was owed payment per contract and Hortico refused to pay him. He alleged he arranged for the Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian produced bare root roses to be delivered to Hortico, who reportedly didn’t even wash the soil from their roots, changed the addresses on the boxes and shipped them to their US customers. This helped with the movement to close the US-Canada border against plant shipments in an effort to require the same restrictions against them as were already in place with all other foreign sources. The major US producers were all in favor of this restriction as it would have closed the door to Austin, McGredy, Tantau, Meilland, Delbard and many other competitors and entry into the US market of their new introductions at almost the same time they were introduced in Europe. I’m sure many of them found the idea of a closed border with Canada attractive as it would have saved them potentially enormous levels of lost royalties. I heard of an episode between Austin and the owner or manager of Hortico some years ago when well known American exhibitors took him to Hortico so he could confront them about thousands in ‘stolen royalties’ from the dozens of English Roses introduced into the US market through them without his licensing.
A very vocal, local, rabid exhibitor hounded J&P about RMV infection in their VI plants and was quite active concerning the Rose Wilt and Canadian border issues in Southern California. All of the virus issues were silenced when it became apparent they were strengthening the case for a closed border. Fortunately, other issues became more important and the border issue was forgotten.
I’m certain there are professional concerns about destructive and dangerous pathogens and pests entering US soil, but I am also certain there great desires for restrictions for the competitive protections they provide.
The following was stated: “The group of viruses collectively known as Rose Mosaic Virus. However it occurred, we “gave it” to the world. It had been known of since the early 1920s and had been written of as 'infectious chlorosis” in the early ARS annuals until it became understood it was a transmissible collection of plant viruses."
Please see the following: http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/when_was_rose_mosaic_virus_first.htm
The whole conversation reminds me how you can’t bring crap into California. Yet California is bordered by other states. And how much produce is going into California every day to fill grocery store selves. I am sure all of that produce is not checked. And all of that produce is more likely a vector of disease than a few roses. Also migratory birds or farm trucks that have driven into a field that still has dirt clinging to it. I understand not wanting new pest but sometimes these rules don’t make all that sense. Almost all the cases of diseases being brought into a new area that I know of is the result of some dumb ass trying to save money.
Wisconsin is making an attempt to keep out virused ornamentals. See the table on page 109 in the link below for the large list of oranamental virused plants that Wisconsin found were being sold during the most recent inspection period, March 2 - June 21, 2012. Of particular interest to this group is that they found Rose Mosaic Virus in: Coral Cove, Knock Out, Coral Drift, Miss All American, and Garden Party.
What do they do if the plants tests positive? Here is a quote from the article: “To limit the spread of these destructive plant diseases to garden plants and crops, DATCP requires all virus-infected nursery stock to be removed from sale and destroyed.”
Wow, imagine if you were a cash starved small nursery, and the state sized your inventory of say, Knock Out. I cannot envision a better argument for dealers buying virus indexed stock and rose hybridizers dealing only with companies that guarantee that they bud with virused indexed understock.
“To limit the spread of these destructive plant diseases to garden plants and crops, DATCP requires all virus-infected nursery stock to be removed from sale and destroyed.”
One of the problems with this is many states leave it up to the nursery or box store to destroy the plants. They do not have the personnel to inspect everything nor the personnel to destroy or make sure you destroyed everything you were supposed to.
Good point on the virus indexed stock. You would think that it would push a change in the industry. But this tends to cost more money and many large firms that nursies get there stock from are ran by accountants and not plant people and they see what is cost effective.
I did a lot of the wholesale ordering for where I used to work, and it was done by what Lowe’s on high end nurseries wanted. Although I definitely avoided anything I considered trashy via persuasion, but it does take someone that is actually aware of what the scenario really is out there, which is asking for a lot.
I cannot envision a better argument for dealers buying virus indexed stock
I can. The cost of destroying infected stock would be dwarfed by the cost of defending a class-action lawsuit on behalf of consumers who purchased infected plants. Given the number of unemployed lawyers out there it is a wonder the big box stores haven’t been sued already.
In any case I think this is a great development. Last fall I toured Foundation Plant Services at UC Davis and saw them testing roses for virus infection (they graft them to strawberry plants of all things) and where infected stocks are routinely ‘cured’ of viruses. It is amazing what those folks can do.
Of course, that means we, as breeders, need to deal with growers willing to test our hybrids prior to introduction.
If the rose industry does not take this seriously, it is possible that the federal government may step in.
You may find the following very recent (Posted online on 10 Feb 2012) scientific paper (with a USDA co-author) of interest .
“Some of the viruses associated with desirable effects in ornamental plants include virus species that are capable of causing disease in economically important crops. Therefore, regulatory procedures may have to be implemented with some of these viruses to minimize their dissemination.”
One of the rose viruses can infect barley and oats and is aphid spread. It was actually found in the Univ. of California, Davis, collection of virus indexed roses: “In this test, RSDaV was detected in many different rose species and cultivars from the Foundation Rose Collection at FPS. In all, 129 plants in this collection were tested, and 77 were positive for RSDaV. Some of the hybrid rose cultivars tested positive for RSDaV included Queen Elizabeth, China Doll, Heirloom, Lowell Thomas, Jack Frost, New Dawn, Uncle Joe, Bridal White, Butterscotch, and Cynthia.”
See the link below for details.
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/rose_spring_dwarf_virus.htm
hah, that was the topic of my final speech in speech class some years ago.