In this area, it is always good to be on the look out for Rose Rosette Disease WHEREVER roses are grown. I have also seen it at a nursery, and the owner and I had a really good talk about it. I helped him sort the symptomatic plants out of his stock, and we took them immediately to his burn pile ... where he promised to dispose of them.

Join the rose society! Online forums are NOT a substitute for in-person rose discussions and conversations with other rose growers. You will find that most of the members grow different roses than you do, and may not have heard of many of the ones that I know you grow, but everyone is there BECAUSE of their love of roses. Don't think of a rose society as a place where you GET something, but as a place where you can CONTRIBUTE. Even a hard-core exhibitor with a yard full of only the most popular hybrid tea roses can teach you a thing or two about how to grow better roses.

I love my rose society ... even though some of the members torment me mercilessly about my OGRs ... all done in fun, of course.

I joined my local rose society the first year I was here. But it is comprised of octogenarians growing exhibition hybrid teas in chemical baths. However, I have found the garden clubs much more receptive and curious about roses. Most gardeners have a few roses, even if they are just Knock-outs. I now give several talks a year and the various clubs come tour my garden. I help people put in better choices in roses. For instance, because deer are such a problem here, Rugosas and polyanthas are a great choice of no-fuss roses. I have also spread the word on RRD. Most people have never heard of it, but, sadly, a lot have experienced it. Not knowing what it is, they don't pull the plant immediately and thus often become contributors to the problem. Last year I talked a friend into buying a couple of Cliff Orient's mother roses, at great expense for both plant and shipping. She called me in April to say one of them had really funny growth. It was RRD. She got it from her next door neighbor, an avid gardener with a number of roses, one of which had been infected for several years as she kept hoping it would out-grow the disfigurement since it wasn't on all the canes.

I also found an RRD rose at a nursery at the end-of-summer sale. It was knocked down to $5 along with several other sickly roses (BS, chlorotic, etc). Someone with savior syndrome would have bought that rose, taken it home...

Yikes! Talk about sharing someone else's troubles! So sorry to hear about your friend's rose. That is a hard lesson.

The Shenandoah Rose Society takes care of the roses in a local cemetary, so I hope they are open to OGR's and disease resistant roses. I feel a rosey trip coming on to check out the roses at that cemetery. I wonder how much care they get . . . I almost joined the rose society this spring, but kept putting it off. With that little bit of encouragement, I believe I'll join. The April meeting to prune the roses at the cemetary is sure to be interesting.

Shenandoah (?in Staunton) will know about RRD because the cemetery in downtown Staunton lost their red chinas to RRD. Which is a real shame because that's a cold climate for chinas and they deserved to be shared.

The state of Virginia plant inspectors should be told about this. Selling sick plants is illegal, for starters. If they are hesitant, tell them to contact the plant disease people at Virginia Tech (Mary Hansen and Anton Boudouin) for confirmation and to tell them how bad it is.

Now that I've had to face my Japanese Beetle fear, I'm just waiting for all those Knockout's lining up the city streets to get RRD. They'll probably linger long enough to allow infection of every normal rose in town.

Yes, that is the right one, the Shenandoah Rose Society in Staunton. I'm glad they can recognize RRD. I don't consider myself an expert or anything and I know about it. I am amazed who does NOT know about RRD around here--people I thought would know more than I do, for sure.

Thanks for the "teeth" Ann, I'll check back with the nursery to see that they follow up with the Shenandoah Rose Society and have an expert examine their roses. I don't expect them to take my word for it, but I do expect them to check into it. I'll make sure they know about your website, too.

I would take JB's any day over RRD! (Un)fortunately, I don't have to choose.

The RRD infected plants that I saw at the nursery I visited were in the stock held over from the previous season. They must have sat there for sale, received a visit from infected mites, incubated the disease, then showed symptoms months later. None of the current season's new plants were affected.

I'm going to ask my ag inspector about her experience with RRD. Nurseries in Virginia receive a surprise inspection once per year to check stock for sale. My inspector even takes a jeweler's magnifying glass to inspect the leaves of the pots on my sales benches ... looking for anything that shouldn't be passed along to customers.

Connie

Just between us, the hand lens needed to catch a view of eriophyid mites (all of them, not just the RRD vectors) needs to be the 20x magnification, not the 10x. The problem with a 20x is that the width of the field of view is greatly reduced from what you can see with a 10x.

I find it a lot easier to use a binocular zoom microscope indoors where breezes don't make things difficult at that magnification.

"The stock held over from last season." Probably root bound, too. All the more reason to purchase a rose from Hartwood or Roses Unlimited or Pickering next year. Plus they *know* what they're selling!

I hope that the possibility of herbicide damage was brought up.

Here is a link that might be useful: my rose rosette virus web page

Right, because nurseries are always spraying herbicides around their plants for sale.

North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service

"Manual removal of weeds is time consuming, expensive, and often results in damage to landscape plants when intertwined roots of both the weed and the ornamental plant are pulled up. Consequently, postemergence herbicides are often used to remove weeds. Few selective postemergence herbicides are available for use in landscape plantings or nursery stock production. Consequently, nonselective herbicides (which must be selectively applied to avoid injury to desirable plants) are typically used for postemergence annual and perennial weed control. Choosing the right herbicide for the situation is an important decision. Nonselective herbicides (as the term indicates) are not selective about which plants they kill. Any green plant that they contact will be injured or killed. The level of weed control (or ornamental plant injury) resulting from these herbicides depends upon the chemical characteristics, mode of action of the herbicide, and the season of application.

Postemergence, nonselective herbicides are classified as either contact or systemic. Contact herbicides kill only the green tissues that are contacted by the spray. Systemic (sometimes also called translocated) herbicides move within the plant from the point of application to other plant parts. Some systemic herbicides are more mobile (move easily and farther) in plants than others. Also, in perennial weeds the amount of systemic movement of the herbicide often depends upon the season. Therefore, to obtain optimum control, herbicides must be applied at the time of year when weeds are most susceptible.

Four postemergence, nonselective herbicides are labeled and commonly used in landscapes and nurseries. Reward and Scythe are contact herbicides, whereas Finale and Roundup-Pro are systemic. Some characteristics of each are compared in Table 1. None of these products have residual activity (i.e.: no root uptake and no preemergence weed control) in soils containing greater than 1% clay . However, in sandy soils, muck soils or soilless media, root uptake of systemic herbicides is possible. Each product has a place in landscape management, but choosing the right herbicide for the right situation requires information and an understanding of each herbicide's strengths and weaknesses. The following descriptions should provide some background information to facilitate your herbicide selection."

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

No chance that the symptoms I saw in the stock at the nursery I visited were from herbicide exposure. The characteristics of herbicide damage and RRD are different enough to distinguish between the two quite easily once one is familiar with them.

What I see coming out of this discussion is this ... be aware of what you are buying when you're out there shopping for plants. If you find anything amiss in the nursery stock, make the owner/manager aware of it.

I called the nursery today and the rose person said someone from the "rose commission" had come and said the distorted leaves were from "insecticide damage" which he corrected to herbicide damage when I questioned him a bit. That didn't inspire my confidence. So. I don't trust a Google search on this touchy issue. Can you all provide a reliable website that clearly shows the difference between RRD and herbicide damage?

If those were his exact words, I would be more suspicious that an inspection actually occured than I would of the investigator mis-diagnosing it.

Yes, those were his exact words. I'm uncomfortable calling again for more information from him, and, since he hadn't heard of RRD in the first place, I don't consider him an expert, either. Basically, I'll never purchase a rose from that nursery, it's 40 minutes away, I've never been there before, and I don't have the authority or knowledge base to insist on anything.

Of course, I may change my mind after I see pictures of herbicide damage. The Google search turned up a number of photos on it that I would consider RRD.

Did he say "insecticide damage" or "herbicide damage"?

The first thing he said was "insecticide damage." I said "What? You mean herbicide?" He said "Yes."

I did a search and a very quick look on "herbicide damage" on the roses forum and, I would say, 90% of the final decisions on the damage were for RRD. Which does not mean this is, but RRD is scary enough that I'm staying well away from it. And, it's certainly poor practice to spray herbicies close enough to any plant in a pot to cause damage.

"The first thing he said was "insecticide damage." I said "What? You mean herbicide?" He said "Yes.""

Right. Yeah, I agree, seems like there may not have not been an inspection.

But, who knows. I guess I agree that spraying herbicide near plants for sale is questionable. But, I suppose that there could be circumstance where it may be needed for one reason or another, and accidents do happen. Like, maybe escaped goutweed or pinellia ternata infestation in the rose rows and the eradication job was given to the newbie intern who picked a breezy day?? Yeah, maybe not. But maybe.

I'd be wary of purchase, though.

I have seen what I am sure was rrd at a nursery about an hour from Philadelphia. This was two years ago and I have not been back since. Not cause I am avoiding the place, just cause I never really get up there. If I did, I would stop and see what was happening now. It was an end of season sale, all the roses looked more than questionable to me. I think the markdown had way more to do with the coindition and look of the plants than season, actually. I am no expert but I think I am more apt to err on the side of caution when I see plans that may or may not have rrd symptoms. I see them around my area quite a bit, actually. (Yards and businesses, not nursery situations, that is.) I will say that when I saw the rows of sad plants at this particular nursery, I was pretty damn certain it was RRD.

I realize that herbicides can mimic RRD, but in regard to purchase, I'd pass them up unless flat out told there was some type of accident and this was the result. I'm thinking a markdown, too. Oh, and the story about the accident better be really, really good. Really good.

Other than that, I can see no reason to risk it. Nor can I see a reason for a nursery to leave plants like that in view at all, rrd, herbicide or what have you. Just... not good business, I would think.

Well, I guess you know where not to go for roses. I do!

Here you go: Wait a couple weeks. Go back and tell them you have a suspect rose in your garden and hope to have the person from the "rose commission" come out and take a look, may you have his or her number? ;)

Merlcat, I need to go to you when I need lessons in polite persuasion! I'm kinda sad and kinda glad you had a similar experience. I wondered about the possiblity of a "non-inspection," too. If any of the roses are still there next year there will be no doubt about the cause, one way or the other. Maybe the REAL inspector will happen by . . . In the meantime, there is NO WAY I'm bringing one of those roses home. Not even if he paid ME $100 to take it.

And no, they were not discounted because they looked weird, either.

So here we have a local rose nursery that cooperates with a local rose society by having a "local rose society gave a class there last week", puts damaged plants to the side, and makes an effort to get an outside opinion. Yet this nursery appears to some/mamy on this thread as one to avoid.

It is no wonder that we are losing so many independent nurseries. Many, most of (or all) I assume are/were in the business because they love(d) gardening and recognize the benefits of gardening to society.

Here is a link that might be useful: literature example of health benefits

They are making an effort. However, I'll be spending my hard earned dollars for unquestionably healthy roses.

I really do want to see pictures of verified herbicide damage to roses. Does anyone have a link to share?

I feel that I posted such a link in this thread.

Round up damage links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuM5gjdx7g
http://buggyrose.tripod.com/iabioticdisorders.htm

I agree They are making an effort, too, Henry. And it is very cool they have visiting speakers there for open forum.

I have to question if the roses had anything to do with the visit of the speakers, though. I am perhaps reading this wrong, but I do not think that the speakers pointed them out in any way as questionable. I think I understood that an employee put them aside because they looked different. Why? My guess would be to mark them down and move them. They could not have been pulled too far aside, or grandmothers rose, as a customer, would not have seen them, period.

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that between the nursery dude and the employees, none of them went home and thought "I should try and figure out what the *$@ is wrong with these roses. I'm gonna try and look this up on the internet tonight."
Honestly, RRD is all over the web. Type some symptoms into google, and there you go.

red leaves stunted growth thorn rose
RRD listed twice before the fold in the page

roses excessive growth red leaves malformed buds
Wikipedia rose diseases listed second, rrd on that page

twisted growth rose
second, third, fourth entry, all pages about RRD

roses extra thorny soft growth
Rose rosette, second on page

Really, no one tried to figure it out? I do not really consider this being too proactive, unless Grandmothers rose caught them the instant on the day they were being picked up and moved. But, apparently the employees did NOT go home and google. If they did, the nursery guy would have been more co-operative in the second call, I think.

Really, I learned about this by myself. Saw a sick rose, did some research. Simple. Why is said nursery not doing this?

Have all the speakers you want, but the nursery must still make priority quarantine of any suspect plants, no? Or at the very least, explain to the inquiring customer how the diagnosis was come to, as apparently there was an herbicide incident there. If so, why not tell her just that, or even just say "We are trying to figure out how these got misted when the landscapers did the neighbors property and have a talk with them about safety." Or, how about, "Yes, it is herbicide damage but we are pulling the plants anyway for observation."

I think any scenario like this would have made the shopper feel a little bit better.

I shop almost exclusively at small, privately owned nurseries in Lancaster, Pa, as well as some local nurseries within a couple miles of my house. I'd hate to lose any of them, for sure. I too shop at the Big Boxes every so often, as I can afford them. But, I also buy at local plant sales. I'd still buy plants at the nursery I saw the RRD, their specialties are not roses by any means. But not roses. Not unless the stock was A1 looking great, and they could talk about RRD with me with a little bit of knowledge or be able to say, "Oh, we had a problem with some infected stock a couple years ago. Got that all worked out."

Henry, on another note, I will say that I read all your posts and find them helpful and have learned from them. I'll let you know I did make a decision I wish I had not had to.

I had to use the dreaded Glyphosphate this year in my HELL battle with Pinellia Ternata. (Which, by the way, it does not seem to kill. At least not the attached bulblets.) Point is, they were (are) ridiculously mixed in and around every bed at my place, worst in the perennials and roses. I am testing a couple ways to eradicate it, and I made the decision to have to try the glyphosphate in some areas as tests, knowing that I may see residual damage. I painted the roundup on after sanding the leaves w/ sandpaper, using q-tips. Was as careful as possible about any dripping down stems. Insanity, I tell you. One area, I sprayed with the pump to see if it made a difference. These were sectioned away from any other plants as I did not want to risk anything terrible happening, growing under a set of wooden porch steps.

So far, I have only seen residual damage to a few clumps of my wild violets, which I know are oddly, extremely, terribly susceptible to even the tiniest whiff of herbicide. So far, I have seen no damage to the roses, but I am certainly going to watch and document everything I see and will certainly share it. Granted, I used it only around some store bought minis that I guess are expendable to many, but I love them anyhow and would hate to see them harmed, or die

I'm on the fence with this experiment so far. I am afraid that the realty is that digging through roots, destroying root systems of other plants and essentially having to sift out the bulbs may be the only way. So, it is death by destroying roots or death by herbicide drift. What to pick. I am personally going to continue digging, and only time will tell.

I have said a whole lot that makes me come off as a know it all, which I most certainly am not. I do try and learn as much as I can here and elsewhere about roses and gardening, well anything I do!

I just think that there were many other ways the nursery person could have responded to grandmothers rose using words that would have made her WANT to go back and shop there. But they didn't, really. that is no ones fault but the nursery. I am sure they have great plants otherwise. Just maybe not roses this year.

Upon re-reading my post I did not mean to make it seem that rose disease diagnosis is simple. Crap no! I have all kind of questions about what is going on with all my plants!

I do think, though, that with a disease that is almost certain death and a carrier for almost certain death, RRD is one of the easier problems to recognize, once you know what you are looking at.

I need tons of help and advice, for sure, but RRD would not be the thing I would mess around with if I saw suspect plants.

Thank you Merlcat. I did check Henry's link and only investigated the first link. Upon closer review, he had the two links you posted also. I appreciate that you gave them to me straight so I couldn't miss them! You sound like someone with experience to share, not a know-it-all.

Guess I need to join that Rose Society, because I sure would have pegged that abiotic herbicide damage as RRD. Did I properly catch the point that herbicide damage grows no or very few thorns and RRD has multitudes of soft thorns? Is this the key difference?

At the nursery, I didn't notice any hyper-thorniness. The leaf nodes were noticably closer together than the normal growth and the leaves skinny and stunted. There were no buds to examine. I thougth the affected area looked like frozen sparks from a sparkler. It was actually pretty, but I knew it wasn't normal. The distored leaves were not reddish, but a washed out light green with white edges. They looked like the photo of Double Delight on chapter 11A of Ann Peck's RRD website but without the red. That particular photo does not show excessive thorns. Humm. Maybe I should have used that cell phone camera.

That Pinellia Ternata is uuuuggly! I'm glad I don't have that one to contend with. I thought the twice cursed common milkweed I planted was bad, but at least it will eventually die if I keep digging it up.

Here is a link that might be useful: p. 11A of Ann Peck's RRD Web book

As Hartwood said, if you've seen both, it's easy to make a determination. A plant that has RRD that mimics RU damage is rare. If you've never seen either, and you do have RU damage your first thought may be RRD, especially if you don't think or remember using herbicides in the area.

Even at my rose society, I shared my experience with RRD (there was NO doubt) and there were those who have either never seen RRD (or RU damage) or thought it could be RU damage. These are people who have grown roses for decades. But RRD is scary to a lot of people and they don't want to accept that there is something out there that we have limited control of that could destroy our roses. It's easier sometimes to blame RU.

Here are two pictures from my yard:

RU damage

{{gwi:296401}}

RRD

{{gwi:296402}}

I knew that our dear Buford would show up with her very clear images of herbicide damage. I wish I could intentionally expose a rose to Round Up and get this to occur, so I could give a class on the difference between this and RRD.

Instead of debating the merits of whether the nursery is trying or not trying, the proper thing to do is to notify the Virginia agricultural agents and get them involved. Their job it to insure the quality of Virginia agricultural products (including nursery stock), and they should know about what you saw at the nursery. "Rose Commission"? There is no such thing. If he misspoke and meant "Rose Society", no one there has any sort of authority to regulate or quarantine suspicious things in his stock.

The phone number for the Harrisonburg office of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is 540.209.9153. They're the people you need to call.

I also had, at the link that I gave, a third link that compared herbicide damage to Rose Rosette Virus. This one is from the Plant Pathology Department Extension Service at the University of Arkansas.

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

I am particularly interested in information from the University of Arkanas since Conard-Pyle (of KnockOut fame) is funding RRV research by Dr. Ioannis E. Tzanetakis there.

http://reddirtramblings.com/roses/rose-rosette-disease-and-oklahoma

As others have pointed out in other threads on this subject other herbicides besides Round-Up also cause damage similar to Rose Rosette Virus. I wonder how many people that have said that they are sure that it was RRV because they did not use Round-Up had their lawns treated for weeds (or their neighbors lawns were).

Here is a link that might be useful: third link that was given.

This is a 2009 Virginia based article. Perhaps one can get updated information or answers to specific questions from them for Virginia.

Chuan Hong, Extension Plant Pathologist, Hampton Roads AREC; Mary Ann Hansen, Extension Plant Pathologist, Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science; and Susan DeBolt, Extension Agent of Environmental Horticulture; Virginia Tech

Here is a link that might be useful: 2009 Virginia Tech article

Well, nothing like giving a person a solution to see if they will take it or continue complaining. Connie, thanks for that phone number.

Buford, thanks for the photos!

Buford's photos could both be herbicide damage. At present there is not a simple field test to determine if a rose has RRV or does not have RRV. Excessive thorns is thought to be a good indicator of RRV infection but lack of excessive thorns does not rule out RRV. Buford's photos do not show excessive thorns, and the one that he feels is RRV is similar to one posted for herbicide damage by Plant Pathology Department Extension Service at the University of Arkansas.
http://plantpathology.uark.edu/Number5-2009.pdf

From Ann Peck's web book:
"There are no laboratory tests to confirm a diagnosis of RRD; graft transmission tests can confirm the disease when the recipient plant (R. multiflora) develops RRD. A lack of transmission does not prove lack of the disease, just lack of transmission. Dr. Jim Amrine (personnal communication) suggests that graft transmission tests are more often successful in spring than in other seasons. This, to me, corresponds to the time that multiflora puts on most of its new growth (when its growth isn't affected by RRD)."
--------------------------------

H. Kuska comment: Until a simple lab test is developed, we simply do not know from a single field examination in some/many cases. There are too many variables: type of herbicide, concentration of herbicide, rose variety, weather, etc. to say for certain from a single observarion in all cases this plant definitely has RRV, this one definitely has herbicide damage.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ann Peck's chapter Recognizing Rose Rosette

No my RRD picture cannot be RU damage. Here are all the pictures of that rose:

RRD Thread

BTW, I found a rose with rampant RRD in my neighbors yard behind the fence that this rose was sitting. Neither my neighbor or I used herbicide in this spot. Ann Peck confirmed that my rose had RRD. If you look closely at the pictures, they are vastly different and no one would think that the RRD picture was RU damage.

I called the Ag and Consumer Services Dept. this morning and had to leave a message. I said the growth could be RRD or RU damage. I hear anything back, I'll post a message.