Actually spring IS when plants show herbicide damage in all of their new growth... If that IS the culprit, it may be another year of nursing them before they start to grow normally...

But, spring is also when overwintering RRD shows up.
Definitely take samples to the Hort extension lab. They should then send them (or photos) to the folks at Virginia Tech who have a lot of experience with RRD.
Herbicide symptoms are very limited in their aspect; with RRD there's a much greater variety of things that look wrong. Try to keep the plant canes well hydrated so the hort folks can see clearly what's happening.

You probably won't be able to find Cygon. It's been pulled from home use. What you can do for the newly planted roses is check upwind of those roses and see if you can find multiflora with RRD. At this time of the year, multiflora with RRD is really ugle, with reddish contorted growth (where normal spring multiflora is bright green).

All roses are susceptible to RRD. Being on different rootstocks won't help protect them, nor will being ownroot protect them. The problem with roses on fortuniana is that they are growing almost continuously, so there's fresh meristemic tissues at both apical meristems and at leaf axils for the vector mites to bite into. (Often, in rose collections, New Dawn is the first rose to catch RRD because the rose makes a big baffle with dead air inside it and the vector mites drop out of the air and onto lots of fresh leaf axils...and thus it's spread.)

Decobug, this is NOT directed at you because you haven't seen the problem and you didn't give a diagnosis. But I have to tell you the following. Today I got an email from someone who was told early last year not to worry, that his problem probably wasn't RRD. But it was and by waiting he lost a lot more roses than he would have, had the people he asked kept their wrong advice to themselves. This is why calling 'it' herbicide drift is so dangerous...when it isn't.
This isn't the first time that 'herbicide' has turned out to be RRD in the eastern USA.
Right now it's the rose disease that most people have never heard of, or don't want to hear about it.

That's OK... :) I just wanted her to know that herbicide damage isn't just a 1 year thing, that often it can take several years for the roses to recover...

I HAVE never seen RRD, and I defer to your expertise :)

>>>What you can do for the newly planted roses is check upwind of those roses and see if you can find multiflora with RRD. At this time of the year, multiflora with RRD is really ugle, with reddish contorted growth (where normal spring multiflora is bright green). >>>>

OK, Ann, Thanks for weighing in. I never know really what people mean by "upwind" - it's so breezy here with the winds whipping all over the place, I'll just assume the new bed is indeed "upwind" from the affected roses. But are you saying I should check for wild multiflora or are you referring to my existing affected multiflora roses? If the former, there's no way I can check unless I go hiking on the closest undeveloped field, which I believe it at least fives miles away...

Howevere, if you saying I need to check my existing affected roses, the distorted new growth isn't red. It's still looking like the same distorted growth as last year's. In fact, that's how I'm finding the distorted new growths: because on an otherwise reddish growth that looks fine, all of a sudden there's canes that are bright green with stunted green leaves. Can the overwintering RRD manifest itself in green as well??

I will definitely give a sample to the Hort lab. Or should I contact VT directly?

Thank you everyone

Ann, you are not going to believe this. Yes, I bet you would. I am just heartsick. My beautiful Lemon Spice and both Francis D's have RRD. I got 10-15 beautiful blooms on LS earlier this week and then FD started to bud and bloom, 4-5 gorgeous blooms and then rosettes all over FD and now LS has 2 rosettes and on careful inspection some of the newer canes had ugly thorns. Foliage not gnarly or aberrant, but rosettes and gnarly canes. I am just sick. They are potted roses and I have about 20 other potted roses on my patio (not pot ghetto) but large huge decorative containers of roses and we had them all grouped together over winter so that we could move them in and out of harm's way quickly in case weather turned cold so now I am going to bet some of the others will have it as well. I am about to cry as I type. That was my last Lemon Spice; the other was lost 2 years ago and now the FD's. The other roses in pots are florist roses that I have had several years. I need a towel for tears. It seems that I am losing this rose battle.

The speed with which this appeared in Patricia's roses is yet another symptom...along with my three dreaded adjectives: aberrant, excessive and unexpected. Roses just aren't supposed to put on growth in excess of what is normal for that rose at that time of the year, and the growth that comes should look like the growth of last year.

"I never know really what people mean by "upwind" - it's so breezy here with the winds whipping all over the place, "
Upwind is anydirection from which the winds come to your garden. I'm on a hilltop and my dominant direction is from the west. On my big mature roses, in winter, their canes point east. The upwind potential source of the RRD vector mites becomes the place where you have to look to prevent high disease pressure on your roses.
......." But are you saying I should check for wild multiflora or are you referring to my existing affected multiflora roses? If the former, there's no way I can check unless I go hiking on the closest undeveloped field, which I believe it at least fives miles away... "
Undeveloped fields five miles away aren't going to be a present danger. But do look for multiflora growing up into trees or along roads that are more than 20 years old. Also a potential problem is that someone in your neighborhood has a sick rose in their backyard and haven't yet noticed that it isn't blooming. When wild multiflora starts blooming (in the area near Williamsburg, I've seen it blooming two weeks after the Tulips stop), try to get a feel for where it is. Then watch for RRD to move in.

"Howevere, if you saying I need to check my existing affected roses, the distorted new growth isn't red. It's still looking like the same distorted growth as last year's. In fact, that's how I'm finding the distorted new growths: because on an otherwise reddish growth that looks fine, all of a sudden there's canes that are bright green with stunted green leaves. Can the overwintering RRD manifest itself in green as well?? "
Yes. But has the distorted growth gotten even uglier? The first garden RRD I had reported from the warm Dallas FT Worth area never was reddish- and that was a surprise to everyone. But it was RRD.

"I will definitely give a sample to the Hort lab. Or should I contact VT directly?"
Go through your Hort People as they have the digital cameras as well as the direct line to the Diagnosic lab at VT and it also helps them know more about what may be happening locally.
Try to take them material from a rose that had problems last year as well as material from a rose that just showed the problem this spring.
Did you herbicide any trees/woody weeds/poke weed growing in among the roses?

I've had both RRD and herbicide damage. The herbicide damage doesn't look as bad as RRD IMO. I know RRD can manifest itself in many ways, but herbicide damage usually looks the same.

This is my Reve d'Or which had herbicide damage last year, but has recovered:

{{gwi:260128}}

{{gwi:260130}}

{{gwi:260133}}

Personally, I would not confuse the two looks. If you've ever seen RRD, you would never forget the look and you would know it forever.
Coastal VA, I am sorry for the horrible RRD. It's devastating at first but doesn't get better, the feeling I mean.

Carla

Buford, my new growth looks like the ones in your pictures, but I guess I'll know more when they leave out more, and I'll be able to tell more if they're uglier or not. It's all alarming anyway.

Ann, to answer your other question about using herbicide among the roses: yes, I herbicide a lot around them and last year was when I was using it liberally. But the new growth shouldn't appear deformed like that.

The new bed is upwind of the affected roses. What should I do with those new ones? Should I spray a miticide on them? They are on the other side of the yard.

Carla, thanks for your support. :)

You are right Carla. Herbicide damage looks bad, but RRD looks downright evil. I'll never forget it. If I close my eyes I can still see the misshapen buds and deformed growth on the canes. It looks like those awful pictures they used to show of really bad birth defects.

hi! Sorry about your roses. Just posting to say hi since it looks like we may be in the same area.

Sunni

so which rrd do you think you have?
rose rosette disease
or
roundup ready disease?

Ann,

I gave a sample to the Va Tech Extension Lab on a Thursday and rec'd their written response back on Saturday. Their response verbatim was: "Most likely it is damage from Roundup. Need to kep Roundup off rose leaves, stems + surfaces. [Finale?? (unable to read handwriting here)] would be safer aound roses than Roundup."

Although their response is welcome news, I had some reservations for premature celebration. I was surprised at their 3-day response, and after reading their hastily written scrawl, I am wondering if they truly analyzed the sample. I had an impression of them poring over my samples under a microscope for days, investigating on a molecular level the causes of the deformities: rose rosette? or only traces of herbicide? And then I had impressions of them speaking to Va Tech to determine if we did have RRD outbreaks in this area.

But what do you think, based on that?

Thank you!

Herbicide damage:

{{gwi:260136}}

The leaves are stunted, never grow larger and there are no thorns...

The problem with RRD is there is no molecular test in part because the 'virus' or what ever it is has never been isolated. So all the analyst can do is look at symptoms. (There are times when I deeply envy the money the Europeans and Asians are putting into rose research and into rose disease research.)
When I've had herbicide damage, it has lasted only one year. I do know someone who roses took three years to recover and there's a garden in western SC that had herbicide problems for at least two years running (although it was tended by volunteers who may have made the same mistake of using a personal sprayer that had had herbicide two years in a row).

If they were my roses, I'd cut the scruffy canes way back. At least half way. IF it's RRD what will come back will be really ugly. If it's herbicide it will come back ugly, but the same kind of ugly as you've already seen. And you'll have reduced the titre of herbicide that is systemic in the plant.
You will know in about three weeks if you'll need to take more actions.

Let me know how this plays out.
All too often, gardens way out in front of the 'battle front of RRD' do get infected by vagrant mites. It has happened so many times. We know that RRD is in your area.

Good luck.

Ann,

Thank you!

So far some of the new growth is still ugly, but looks the same as last year's.

You said that you know for a fact that RRD is in my "area". I know last year we discussed this - you mentioned there was a confirmed RRD case in...was it Chesapeake, Virginia?

So say that my deformities are indeed Roundup damage and zero RRD for now. Would you please tell me again how I should prevent it? A "pre-emptive strike", as it were. Should I spray w/ miticide once in a while?

Thanks again.

Decobug,

Yes, that's what my canes look like exactly. I don't recall the number of thorns, but I do remember trying to look for the excessive thorn symptom of RRD and couldn't find it.

Would you please tell me again how I should prevent it?
It's impossible to prevent it. The best we can do is catch it early, when it's on a single cane on a single rose.
Prevention can include designing a rose garden for maximum air flow and not planting roses where wind hits a big flat surface and would drop the mites on the roses at the base of that surface.

A "pre-emptive strike", as it were. Should I spray w/ miticide once in a while?
No to once in a while. Reason: You'd like your roses to be a happy thriving community of beneficial insects and mites, that is, those insects and mites that would quickly eat any non-beneficials that wander or are dropped there.
Occassional spraying is supposed to eliminate all the insects good and bad. The bad ones, the herbivores come back first and then ...more slowly...the predators come in. What we really want is for the predators to be there all the time.
How about spraying all the time? Still won't kill the vagrant mites that drop in the day after you spray. And such spray programs lead to evolution of spray resistant mites/insects.

The problem with there being any herbicide residue is that roundup doesn't leave any residue in the soil after a few days, probably doesn't leave any in the plants either. If there is no test for the rrd virus, I don't know how they can ever be distinguished. As long as multiflora is considered a noxious weed and people keep spraying with roundup, and gets blamed as carriers for rrd, and people with roses keep using roundup, I'm not sure we'll ever know for sure.