I tried. It blackspots and declines w/o spraying. Similar to other yellow-apricots from Paul, like Oshun or JJ. Beautiful roses. It's a shame our climate is not so forgiving.
Olga

Still another vote for "regional roses". Though something may be clean in one environment, in others which appear similar, it may not. Historically, it isn't surprising. Joseph Pernet-Ducher created his Pernetianas in France. When asked why he didn't try to breed out the black spot, he responded, "What black spot?" Not every climate and micro climate supports every disease. Even when something appears and is dealt with, the fungi mutate. The disease I have in my garden is genetically different from the one in yours, elsewhere. Dr. David Byrne of Texas A&M has even collected black spot from other areas to test his breeding stock against strains from other parts of the country. It's only through valuable information such as your post, Olga, these things can be learned. Thank you! Kim

Olga, you should write a rose book for the Mid-Atlantic, your information is INVALUABLE I swear.

Even as anecdote, this is highly likely to be true.

Perhaps you could collaborate with Molineux, and your colleagues nearby in northern Virginia (& perhaps a few in the Philadelphia, &/or southern New Jersey/Delaware area). You would at the least provide very significant info. to rose breeders elsewhere curious to know what their rose progeny face in "ground zero" for blackspot.

;)

(Nothing like suggesting work for others, is there? ;) )

(My very humid climate is also very subject to blackspot, but unlike in the Philadelphia area I note that here the disease appears to be more spotty in its severity. The warm/sticky portion of the summer here is much less long, lasting typically only from early-mid July through mid-August, and even then normally only in spurts during that time. In a warm year without spraying symptoms normally first appear within a week or two of the burst of bloom at the end of the late spring/early summer, but in other years symptoms may not appear until mid-July, and then fade out by the end of August as long as an organic fertilizer such as "Rose Tone" is regularly applied according to recommendations (I use "Garden Tone", but no matter, it largely works the same way).)

Regardless, Olga, thank you for passing along your experience with Joyce Barden. As a consequence I know it is likely to be problematic for me.

So true!

Academically I know there is more than one rust fungus species that causes "rose rust" (not all of which are known to be in the USA), and yet I myself have never once seen any rose rust on the (admittedly few) roses I've grown.

Powdery mildew and blackspot? That's another story!

(I've also never gardened anywhere but Pennsylvania & Massachusetts.)

Blackspot is so weird, I have a feeling the blackspot we have here is completely different than say the blackspot you can get in St. Louis or New Orleans, other very HOT summer places. New Orleans especially with humidity.

Biologists (well, entomologists anyway) sometimes talk about "sympatric species". Those are species that are to all outward appearances the same thing, yet are sufficiently different in some other way, shape, or form that they don't really ever breed with each other, and so have developed sufficient genetic differences (that you can only see after doing a molecular analysis of the genes from the different populations that on the outside look like only one species) to actually be two or more species living in the same location, but not really interacting with each other at all. (For example, one population/species is only active at dawn, while the other is only active at dusk - or one only lays its eggs on crabapples, while the other only lays its eggs on hawthorns - even though to outward appearances they look like just one insect species).

Perhaps there's more than one species of blackspot fungus.

According to Wikipedia there are 6 species of Diplocarpon, which is the (a?) blackspot causing fungi.

"Diplocarpon is a genus of fungi in the Dermateaceae family.] The genus contains 6 species"