Go ahead and nuke them. After the herbicide has been well absorbed, you could spray with Wilt Pruf in hopes of immobilizing any infected mites. According to our expert Ann, the mites don't go airborne much in the spring anyway.

The issue for the future is not these infected plants but an upwind source from which they were infected. Once the plants are dead to the root, they are not a source of infection. It is not in the soil or anything like that.

You can grow roses successfully even if you can't locate the upwind source. You just have to be vigilant and expect to have to remove a rose occasionally.

At this time of year, when the growth is beginning to be vigorous, cut the canes and paint the cut surfaces with a concentrated herbicide. The rains we're getting this week and next will spread it through the plant quickly.

As to placement of your new roses, don't put them where the RRD sick roses are now. It may take two applications of herbicide to wipe out a big multiflora and its roots. Intersperse them instead.

Don't carry the cut canes past existing rose beds; Do spray the parts with either wiltpruf or hairspray- it's been so very warm this spring that the mites might have come out early (Every other bug has- even someo of the large subterranean beetle larvae are end of May size in my ground.)

When you burn the multiflora, get a permit (of course) and try to burn the worst canes by saving them for the inferno stage of immolation (and burn them soon as you can after cutting)

Here is a link that might be useful: RRD e-book

Did you check with the neighbor to see if he/she used roundup (glyphosate) along the fence line since last summer? If he/she did, you may be seeing residual herbicide damage and not RRD.

"Roses are also very sensitive to glyphosate (Roundup and many other trade names), which can be absorbed through the green stems in addition to the leaves. Glyphosate damage may appear at bud break the following spring after a summer or fall application that contacts leaves or stems; symptoms include a proliferation of small, narrow shoots and leaves."

From:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7465.html

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

Henry,
Right now all over the state of Tennessee, multiflora sick with RRD is showing up, very ugly along fencerows. I don't think someone in another state can have any feeling for just how severe the problem is here. The narrow leaves of glyphosate damage are such a minor symptom compared to the huge number of really ugly symptoms now.

Last week we drove across Tennessee and Kentucky to the Mississippi River and back. This year's warm temperatures have made the aberrant growth grow faster and worse than at this time in previous years.

UCDavis is fortunate never to have had RRD in their roses.

Yep, Ann is right. What I'm seeing in my fence row is REALLY ugly and I don't think there is any question it being RRD--but Henry it is always nice to talk to an optimist! :-)

I need just a little clarification on order and timing, but here's my plan:

1) Spray the infected bushes with WiltPruf
2) Cut the bush down and paint the cane stumps with concentrated Round Up
3) Carefully take canes to the burn pile staying away from my garden areas
4) Burn them in a hot fire ASAP
5) Repeat step 2-4 in a week or so as necessary
6) Go ahead and plant incoming roses in fence line when they arrive in a couple weeks (they are Tea-Noisettes Ann!) but avoid immediate placement on the site of the old bushes.
7) Talk to my neighbors about coming up with a plan to check for and eliminate the mulitflora in the adjoining areas.

Two questions: Does there need to be any time delay between spraying the WiltPruf and cutting the bush down? When Ann says "intersperse" the new plantings how far away from the site of the old infected bush should I get, a yard or 2 or 10?

Once again thank you for the help!

See the 2 links below to see what Round-Up damage on roses looks like:

http://plantpathology.uark.edu/Number5-2009.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuM5gjdx7g

Here is a link that might be useful: second link, a video

Henry thanks for your they pretty much confirming for me that it's not RU damage.

Here are a couple pictures of both a cane and a bush completely involved. Other bushes in the area are not as completely covered as this and on those there are perfectly healthy canes growing right beside and among severely damaged ones. There is nothing in the middle--perfect canes or a disaster. The bushes in the video look sick and damaged. These to an uninformed eye actually look vigorous, just wierd.

http://www.slickpic.com/s/MkuzIIuG2AIxZg/RRD/photo#708837

http://www.slickpic.com/s/m5RzAMNMNQ5QLE/RRD/photo#708836

I'm still trying to figure out posting photos so hope this works!

Actually, every time I go out there it looks worse and worse. There is more of it than I thought yesterday. This is going to be a huge project in irradicating it. I can pretty much get in the next couple days the ones out in the 100-200 yards I originally wanted to plant roses in . But the continuation of the fenceline to the west is going to be awful to deal with.

I am beginning to wonder if I haven't failed with roses before I have even begun! Any suggestions on how to live with RRD in close proximity on an on going basis?

Here is a link that might be useful: subk3's RRD album

The Univ of Arkansas link I gave http://plantpathology.uark.edu/Number5-2009.pdf

states: "Roundup injury resembles a virus called Rose Rosette Virus. You can tell the difference by examining the thorns. Plants with the virus have an excessive growth of unusually soft and pliable red or green thorns ."

Ann, do you agree that this is a good way to distinguish between the 2 conditions?

subk, from your picture I wouldn't rule out Round Up. Did you ask the neighbors?

Two questions: Does there need to be any time delay between spraying the WiltPruf and cutting the bush down?

_just allow enough time for the wiltpruf to dry (and trap the mites)

When Ann says "intersperse" the new plantings how far away from the site of the old infected bush should I get, a yard or 2 or 10?

- depends on the size of the multiflora. The one in your photo is probably only two or maybe three (if you've had drought) years old, so the roots won't be massive. Think under the drip line of the canes and then double that.

The closer up photo has something that we don't talk about much and than is the red on multiflora new growth. I do have multiflora on our farm (we keep trying to eradicate it, it keeps winning). New growth isn't reddish on pure multiflora. On some multiflora species (ramblers andsome polyanthas) there is reddish tinge, but it quickly disappears. That bush view simply looks sick for both the reddish color and that now abandoned black canes to the right. Reason: multiflora with RRD grows later in the season than other multiflora; also multiflora with RRD tends to keep its nutrients as sugars and is very slow to convert to starches and that leads to late fall growth being killed by winter. Most roses with dead canes have canes that are grey or even grey brown; multiflora and other roses with dead canes tend to have black canes; I think that's because winter kills them dead quickly.

The thorny-ness issue. When multiflora is hyperthorny along with other symptoms, it's an easy call. But at least on cultivated roses (I watch RRD on mine a lot more that I spend time with multiflora) I see major variations in thorniness based on I-don't-know-why. A fairly thornless poly cane may sprout a hyperthorny stem and then that stem will yield a less thorny smaller cane. And no other potential RRD symptoms will appear.

A really sick bush in the wild will end up with many different symptoms, some differing from cane to cane depending on when the bush got sick in that part.

Now about herbicide spraying. If you've soybeans or some of the other GM crops near you, you need to know your neighbors and if they are using the GM crops and spraying Glyphosate (to which the GM crops are immune, that's why they are GM). I have a neighbor who has planted both GM soybeans and (I think) GM wheat and corn. I've never had problems with drift from his herbicide spraying and it's happened maybe 200yards from our side yard at the closest.

When the State of Virginia did a major herbicide treatment of multiflora and other invasives along their interstates, they killed 'em dead. FWIW.

In my part of east TN at 1100' Dogwoods are just coming out and redbuds are almost done. Sick multiflora (along Hwy 11W) this morning was still reddish in its new growth.
If that helps.

I had a meserve holly that looked like that, that eventually died. Does holly get RRD or another virus whose symptoms look like RRD?

Cath

Cath,
To the best of my knowledge, hollies do not get any of the family of viruses in which RRD is currently classified.

Do you know any everygreen collectors in your area? There are many evergreens that are collectible that are first found as oddities growing on (what to me would be) normal looking evergreens.

Because they are collectible, it's worth searching this out.

If you are anywhere near commercial plant nurseries that grow hollies, you should contact your extension agent and ask him what to do.

There is a problem, always, with a question that I'd like to answer simply "No, hollies never get RRD", because it is impossible to prove a negative. Maybe some holly somewhere will get it... We can prove positives, negatives are a whole another thing.

Hope this helps. Do try to find some evergreen collectors. They might be interested.

Ann

See the link below. WITCHES'-BROOMS' SOURCES OF NEW AND INTERESTING DWARF FORMS OF PICEA, PINUS AND TSUGA SPECIES

Here is a link that might be useful: WITCHES'-BROOMS' SOURCES OF NEW AND INTERESTING DWARF FORMS OF PICEA, PINUS AND TSUGA SPECIES

To be on the safe side, it could have a phytoplasma cause. I expect that your extension agent would recommend destroying it.

Here is a link that might be useful: phytoplasma

Ann,

The holly eventually died. Since the change that resembled RRD, it always seemed sick. I thought that it was from too much water. The downspout ended at its feet but was directed away with a concrete trough. The problem was that this trough was perched on a steep slope and kept getting displaced. The holly developed brittle twigs, red small new growth and some die back of larger branches and took maybe 4-5 years to die. I mentioned it only because I may plant a rose at that site and do not want to infect it, or anything else, if that is a possibility.

Cath