You will get a lot of recommendations. With the products that you have, here is what I would do.

1. Apply mancozeb 3 times over 7 days (spray today, spray on day 4, spray on day 7 (you may want to add a little liquid soap, Ivory or Dawn, to the spray as a sticker).
2. On day 9, resume your regular schedule with Bayer Advanced Disease Control for Roses, Flowers and Shrubs ONLY. Continue with this through the season.

I had no success using Immunox or Ortho RosePride. Immunox was good for preventing powdery mildew, but not so great at blackspot.

Thanks a bunch, Diane. I'll do just what you recommended and lose the Immunox and Ortho.

I would apply the Bayer product immediately since it has "curative" ability--it kills the fungus within the leaf but does not reverse any damage already done. If you spray it weekly for 2-3 weeks you will get control. Then every 2 weeks should be adequate. Tank mix with mancozeb if you wish, but Bayer alone is highly effective.

Mancozeb doesn't work if the tap water is alkaline. Immunox and Ortho RP, as Diane says, less effective.

You must have some extremely sussceptible varieties to have trouble so early. Might consider culling the herd.

Everything is early this year, including the blackspot. We were discussing it the other weekend at our rose society meeting in Richmond.

All the recommendations you have are spot on ... no pun intended. :) The Bayer should get you on the right track.

Connie

michaelg, unfortunately we do have high alk water. Now I wish I hadn't sold my RO/DI unit. Would bottled water work for the Mancozeb? I've never tested the alkalinity of it, perhaps worth a shot.

As for having highly susceptible varieties, yes and no. The ones that are already quite infected are: Pat Austin, Abraham Darby, Zephirine Drouhin (sp.???), Maggie, Portmeirion and Betty Boop. Then there are some that show absolutely NO sign, including WS2000, Teasing Georgia, Lovestruck, Mary Rose, Tamora, Livin' Easy, Heirloom.

My mind is drawing a blank right now, but there are quite a few more that look extremely healthy.

And THANK YOU both michaelg and hartwood. Any and all advice is very welcome and appreciated. :)

I don't mean to be confrontational but I'm very distressed that you're spraying your roses with a cocktail of poisons that are harmful to the environment. I love roses very much but would focus on those roses that are disease-resistant in your area, mulch and fertilize them well with organic products and see what happens. The environment is already so degraded and our gardens at least should be places that are healthy places for all creatures, including you, your children and pets, and all the beneficial insects that are struggling to survive with all the toxic chemicals they're being exposed to. We need to take the long view, not just any short-term benefits we have now. I'm sure your local rose societies could give you advice on which roses you can grow without spraying. It would also save you quite a bit of money and time and I think you'll be able to enjoy your garden more with roses that are naturally healthy without having to be treated with something all the time. Thank you for reading this.

Ingrid

Ingrid, you are not being confrontational in the least, so no worries there. I completely and whole-heartedly get your point. Now in my defense: The "cocktails" I've used THIS season were in an attempt to get the blackspot under control. In past years I've stuck with one - and only one product (Bayers). No, I'm not saying that this is an eco-friendly product by any means.

I mulch regularly, and have been using composted manure, Rose Tone, Alfalfa pellets, seaweed extract and other natural products ever since I started gardening. My garden does not only house roses, but many other perennials/annuals/shrubs/trees, none of which are or ever have been treated with anything. Heck, I don't even use pesticides, which are a whole lot more damaging to the environment. Instead I rely on lacewing bugs, ladybugs, praying mantis, 100+ bats that I shelter in bat houses at night, and other beneficial bugs for unwanted pest control.

Furthermore there isn't a single aerosol spray in my home. I recycle diligently. I cook for my dogs AND parrots, and the only thing we use in our home are compact fluorescent light bulbs. I could go and and on about what I do right for our environment, but I think you get the picture. I'm by no means perfect, and again, I'm well aware of the damage I am doing by spraying some of my blackspot infested roses, however, I'm not just quite ready yet to give them up yet. :)

I feel your pain Jerseywendy!! I have a little blackspot on quite a few roses for some reason. I have been religious about spraying this spring but they still are getting yellow leaves starting down at the bottom in the middle. Some really don't have any spots on them, just yellow leaves. We really had a dry end of March and April and I did water some but not enough to cause yellow leaves. I am beginning to wonder if my Bayer disease might have gotten to cold at Lowes and may not be working its best. Just going to try to keep it under control and spray weekly until they are all happy again. Good luck, Judy

Yellow leaves with no spots aren't caused by disease. They could be last year's leaves or leaves that are too shaded to contribute to the plant.

Wendy, thank you for your gracious and courteous reply. I'm obviously in error and apologize. I'm thrilled about your efforts with the bats; they're such wonderful and useful little creatures.

Ingrid

Well, Ingrid, I think it's really nice to mention about BS resistant roses and the special role they play in our gardens...

Jerseywendy you are doing a fantastic job with your efforts, but there's so many wonderful varieties of roses to choose from. My attitude used to be exactly like yours, I didn't want to give up on any! of my roses. I fought tooth, nail and claw to rescue them organically, but I realized that in time Nature was the best selector for which roses I get! Also when you buy and discard roses for the truly good ones, (healthy, vigorous and blackspot resistant) you are actually supporting local nurseries for example. In my quest for my roses I wanted ultra fragrance and BS resistance. Those that were weak, I'm going to let die or get rid of until I find the really strong ones and the fragrant ones.

I still don't use any synthetic fungicides in my garden and made a vow not to because the tiniest things upset my Border Collie's digestive tract and vapor always carries no matter how hard you try to control it (she is a frisbee catching dog). Anyway, there are hundreds of varieties of roses out there which will do fantastic without needing those synthetics. Someone from the antiques forum had a list of BS resistant roses. I don't visit the antiques, but Krista showed me a great link for those...I can no longer access my Outlook (until I get my computer re-configured) so perhaps someone from there can post the link for you....

I was a bit sad to find one of my favorite organics people start having to resort to copper and sulfur. Copper and sulfur is pretty hard on earthworms but Bayer's tebuconazole (the one everyone uses here) is even worse for the health of earthworm population. But again, I sympathize because I too want to hang onto our finicky, fussy hybrid teas. I am strictly a hybrid tea and old garden rose fan. I don't want floribundas or grandifloras in my garden. But if I have a very strong, healthy hybrid tea, I find it can weather blackspot just fine! They still bloom and re-leaf like crazy...So I try to chill and wait for the refoliation to take place...

In the meantime, my Gardenville sea tea mixed in Greencure combination has been very effective as a BS buffer as well. With powdery mildew it's been 100% effective. So all is well in my world. The only enemy I fear is canker on my tree rose bud unions and rabbits! Rabbits are my most hated enemy--they are the ones who make me want to scream!!!

Serena, I spray ...not drench...with Bayer Advanced and when I work the soil in my +300 multiple rose gardens, I find the earthwork population is thriving and doing well...the soil is chock full of them.

The Bayer fungicide(tebuconazole) does not harm the earthworms. I doubt that the sulfur harms them but I never used sulfur as fungicide. I used garden sulfur to adjust the pH and I didn't notice any harm to the earthworms. In general, fungicides don't kill insects. Please, do not mix up fungicides with insecticides.

There are urban legends and it seems that there are "garden legends" spread by those who are not familiar with the subject.

I have read all the responses, and would like to suggest that possibly you have killed the fungus, but the new leaves have not appeared yet.

I never spray and grow a few of your roses. You did prune them back, and remove old diseases?

I think you are really on top of things, but have you checked the canes to be sure that winter kill is not moving down? We had a harsh winter this year, and it does take awhile to identify all the canes that are damaged.

Good luck.

Sammy

Ingrid and Serenasyh,
In the mid-Atlantic region, all roses get blackspot. Whether its an HT, shrub, OGR, Hybrid Musk, Knock Out or The Mayflower. If I didn't spray, I wouldn't want to have any roses.

One thing you might want to do next year is spray with a dormant spray. I once let my roses 'go' at the end of the year and stopped spraying. Well it stayed warm and they all had awful bs and anthranose and probably other things. And sure enough as soon as they leafed out, they had bs. It can over winter. Also, I think a bad winter can stress out plants and make them more susceptible to bs. Some of mine haven't been the same since the bad Easter Freeze of 2007.

My roses leafed out late this year for me, but luckily I started spraying early and so far (knock on wood) no bs. I did see some on some old leaves that hung on all winter so that made me be extra cautious this spring.

I apologize for not reading all of your posts. ZD will blackspot and needs to be sprayed in areas that get BS. But if you keep up with your spraying this year until a hard frost (I live in a more temperate zone, so I do spray once every few weeks in the winter) you can grow it successfully.

I also have Teasing Georgia and it will get bs, but it doesn't defoliate. It just looks spotty. Tamora is also resistant. I have Abraham Darby and Pat Austin, but no long enough to know how they do. I had Portmerion, but it didn't last long enough to get bs, LOL. All in all, most of the Austins get black spot. I think Bishop's Castle is the worst. But with spray this year, it's been clean so far.

Also, I've been using the Bayer spray for 3 years now and I have tons of earthworms. I think there is confusion between the Bayer Advanced Disease control and the 3-1 which is a drench and contains insecticide. That would most likely affect the earthworm population. But the tebuconazole is not an insecticide and is sprayed on the leaves, not poured into the ground.

You all are the best! Thanks so much for all the responses. :)

Well, I threw some Mancozeb on the roses last night (not literally, of course), and will treat them with that two more times before resuming my regular spray regime with the Bayer Advanced.

I also made a slow round this morning, and yes, some roses did need a little more pruning where winter damage crept further than I had originally foreseen or previously pruned.

Sammy, yes, all roses were pruned, some heavier than others, and yes, all branches AND fallen leaves were removed.

Depending on how my babies do this season, I am planning to apply a dormant spray next winter. I purchased it last year, and to be honest, the warning labels are creeping me out a wee bit.

Serena, Were you talking about me? LOL. I used Copper spray once in the early spring..I have not used the Sulfur yet. I have been told it is harmless. One thing I have observed is that the roses who have been in the ground a year have hardly any disease. The ones I sprayed are the ones in pots..I know roses in pots are a little more stressed than in the ground. I will go easy I promise! I am still not going to kill my bugs

For easy reference from Wikipedia on sulfur;

"Sulfur, in its native form, is a bright yellow crystalline solid. In nature, it can be found as the pure element and as sulfide and sulfate minerals. It is an essential element for life and is found in two amino acids: cysteine and methionine.
emphasis from me - cet.

whoops, yes, Zyperiris (one of my favorite organics people), I was a bit concerned about the copper drenches, sulfur and the tebuconazole soil drenches which are my primary concern. Earthworms don't do well with this! Think of it this way. People say copper and sulfur are natural occurring ingredients, but quantity is very important. Too much can cause toxicity. So pardon my error. However! there are a few things to note. If one is spraying every single week, sprays gradually keep accumulating in the soils. Year after year week after week if you intensely apply these fungicides, it's really not ideal decades later. So perhaps a compromise would be to plant all the BS magnets in one area and try to keep the healthy stronger ones in other areas of the garden? or just spray the vulnerable ones and leave the BS resistant ones alone? I have found that many healthy roses can still flourish and survive BS very well. They will keep refoliating and blooming like crazy.

Here are the US EPA descriptors of what tebucanazole does. I copied and pasted a primary target paragraph. Note what it says about tebucanozole's effects on causing eye cataracts to dogs. You definitely don't want your dog running through the yard on a windy day when you're using tebucanazole.

"Tebuconazole has low acute toxicity by the oral or dermal route of exposure, and moderate toxicity by the inhalation route. It is not a dermal sensitizer or a dermal irritant; however, it is slightly to mildly irritating to the eye. The main target organs are the liver, the adrenals, the hematopoetic system and the nervous system. Effects on
these target organs were seen in both rodent and non-rodent species. In addition, ocular lesions are seen in dogs (including lenticular degeneration and increased cataract formation) following subchronic or chronic exposure.
Oral administration of tebuconazole caused developmental toxicity in all species evaluated (rat, rabbit, and mouse), with the most prominent effects seen in the developing nervous system. In the available toxicity studies on tebuconazole, there was no toxicologically significant evidence of endocrine disruptor effects."

EPA direct link

Here are the warnings about reproductive concerns for mammals (both in males/females) done by Oxford.

Oxford Journals

Serena, I am sorta grumpy tonight..I am so over this organic-vs safe products debate. I try something that says it is for ORGANIC use..then I get told it is a chemical. So I think I am back to square one. I won't spray a dam thing. I simply don't know what or whom to believe. Like I said..my roses that I planted last year that have had next to nothing sprayed on them look great so far..hardly any BS. I would rather not spray then accidently spray something that kills the life in my garden

Zyperiris, many hugs to you. Yes, my head would spin if I kept reading all the things that could go wrong too! And you are still one of my favorite organics people too, no matter if you are forced to use sulfur, copper, whichever!

Zyperiris, if it helps what is definitely organic to a tee and never ever hurts any living creature and protects roses 100% percent against PM and helps buffer against BS is fish oil-seaweed combined with Greencure. I didn't have the chance to write this out yet because I had to pull up the EPA ratings for tebucanazole. BS is impossible to cure, but it can be buffered against. The fish oils help the Greencure stick better to the leaves for just a bit longer. We had a horrible, horrible relentless rains this spring, but all my outside ground-planted roses and my new potted roses are doing terrific. Whenever we are plastered with rains, that's when the BS hits hard.

I mix one quart of fish-seaweed mix and 1/4 teaspoon of Greencure. This is my first time combining both. I tried it for about 2 weeks in 2009 but then we were hit by the cold and freezing rains and the roses started to go dormant, I didn't continue with it.

Here are the 2 amazing things I noticed when I used the fish-seaweed and 1/4 teapoon Greencure (this covers about 12-15 roses depending on the size of the rose bush). First of all powdery mildew dies within seconds? or 1-3 minutes max? of the application. Next I noticed that my rose leaves are getting huge and thicker-more leathery (5 times larger than they ever used to be)-I will try to post photos to show this!, which has never occurred before. Very leathery leaves tend to fight BS super well! BS so far is almost non-existent on my outside ground-planted roses and my new potted roses. Greencure alone is nowhere as fast or as successful as combining it with the fish-oils-seaweed I have found so far. Again I say so far! Once our hot, blazing sun hits during the summer, we will be BS free. It's the rainy fall which is our nightmare. I already survived the nightmare Spring rains, so we still have to wait and see.

Logically Zyperiris, my roses should be contaminated and filled with BS. We had very heavy spring rains. I never picked up the BS ridden leaves in my Garden from last year's yucky fall/winter season. Absolutely no sulfur and dormancy sprays were used as well. My garden bed should have been a mess but it isn't! So again, I am thinking that the Greencure/fish oils has been really, really helping!

Here's a link to a list of garden chemicals and their level of toxicity to earthworms. It's not comprehensive as far as listing every chemical possibly used, but I've found it to be quite helpful.

Deanna

Here is a link that might be useful: Chemical toxicity to earthworms