You are not talking about the veterinary drug (antiparasitic) Concurat-L available in some countries in Europe that contains Levamisole I suppose?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levamisole

Balling can have many causes. For example it can be physiological or be caused by thrips or botrytis blight AFAIK. Very often the rose fails to open promptly due to excess water in it, then the outer petals dry and stick to the inner ones thus preventing the flower from opening at all and then the bud may be affected by botrytis (if temperature and humidity are in a specific range) which causes it to mould. For the latter there exist specific narrow action fungicides which may prevent mould but may not prevent balling in many cases. Branding, availabiity and license for intentend use will differ from country to country thus I wouldn't want to recommend anything.
Nik

This post was edited by nikthegreek on Mon, Jan 13, 14 at 23:59

Souvenir de la Malmaison is a smaller bush, so it wouldn't be time-consuming to manually assist the blooms. I'd just gently slide my thumbs down the sides of any bloom that wants to ball. That should (carefully) pull back the outer petals and allow the bloom to open--and there should be no mold forming as a result.

I have a couple roses that get "sticky" when the temps and humidity are just right, so I manually assist them on my daily walks through the garden. The rest of the year, they don't have that problem.

Kate

Never heard of "concurat." What is it? Where did you get it?

Balling is generally caused by Botrytis, which is a fungus, so any good fungicide will help. The only fungicide that I know that is specifically labelled to eradicate Botrytis is Palladium, which is incredibly expensive, so I don't think you would want to go there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Palladium

I like Kate's idea of petting the flowers. It works very well and SdlM is a short plant so it's easy-peasy when you need to. You will like the fragrance. Put it next to a warm wall if you are right at the beach.

Hi Kathy,

'Botrytis, which is a fungus, so any good fungicide will help.'

Not really. Due to the physiology of the Botrytis fungi not many fungicides will have any real effect on them.

'The only fungicide that I know that is specifically labelled to eradicate Botrytis is Palladium'

Yes this specifically targets botrytis and related fungi, marketed as Switch in Europe'. It's the one I didn't want to mention in my earlier post, but since you did.. There might be other brands in some countries containing the active ingredients cyprodinil and fludioxonil, not sure about their copyright status. In the EU it is not licensed for amateur use AFAIK. It's more of a protectant than eradicant though. It does have some therapeutic action depending on the fungus stage, crop and time of application.

I'm also not so sure if balling is caused by botrytis, or the condition just makes the bloom more susceptible to it or even that the two are quite unrelated but occur under the same conditions.

What dublinbay proposes often works, especially if the bloom is yet relatively unharmed. One thing to note is that if botrytis (first discoloration and then slimy stuff) sets in the bloom it would be a good idea to cut and discard the bloom and at least a part of the stem to limit spore contamination to other blooms or roses.
Nik

This post was edited by nikthegreek on Tue, Jan 14, 14 at 13:02