Ann a question on RRD am I nuts?

15 years ago

For 2 years now I've done my best to keep track of my rrd. Where plant is located,whats used on rose and when,health of rose after winter, ect, ect. Keeping a log as you mentioned. Now I'm not saying I've never had RRD but in my garden something else seems to be going on. First herbicide damage would be nearly impossible as I don't use any and have not a neighbor even close that dose their yards. Without fail my RRD starts 2 to 3 weeks after alfafa tea. It's almost allways growth coming from a damaged crown. Like the older part of crown or winter damaged unhealthy part of rose. I'm not sure how to explain that part. The growth is ugly. The usual growth you would see in a picture posted here of a rose with RRD. In the past the rose would have been removed' this year I tried something else. This year when I saw a bright red very hyper thorny cane growing in a circle around Tamora instead of remove the rose or cane I just removed the circle. Left enough of cane with lots of short rubbery bristles, long skinny leaves so I could see what would happen. I swear Tamora is absolutely heathy and beautiful after six weeks. Been watching another rose for six weeks, did not remove any of ugly growth. It's a struggle not to run with shovel in hand and remove it but after 5 weeks now it's starting to look much more normal. Canes are finally getting some green and not as rubbery. As it lenghtens it's getting some longer thorns and the masses of short rubbery ones are not as noticable. Still has long skinny leaves thats not normal. Have to say it looks pretty darn good thou. I think it was rosenut or maybe not who took out a rose a while back. An interesting comment was made that all of the RRD looking growth was on an old part of the crown. That was a glimmer of hope that maybe I'm not nuts. Is this at all possible for alfalfa tea to force growth on apart of a rose that isn't healthy enough to produce healthy growth. I have had several other roses with happy endings this year. I do know thou if Tamora with it's cane growing in a circle,hyper thorny soft and rubbery with long skinny leaves stays healthy than someelse is going on. I hope people are kind about this post, just a little nervous saying this out loud. Is there any chance anyone else has had this experience orrr am I really just nuts? Thanks so much if you manage to read this whole post and understand it.

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Comments (6)

anntn6b
15 years ago
I think I get what you're saying.
A rose can live with RRD for a while. I know some rose exhibitors who have roses with really big crowns and who have kept roses going for as long as five years with RRD in the bush, but they were still getting a few good canes each year. For them and probably for you, the mite population was low so spread within a rose only happened when phloem moved within the bud union to other roots and then up to the canes that they supported.
I've seen a puny plant of Nearly Wild survive with RRD for five years. Until the fifth year, it managed to keep a cane that looked normal. But the rest of the plant declined into RRD ungliness.
When you say that a Tamora cane curved in a circle, that happened because one side of the cane was growing faster than the other. (Alfalfa tea would have affected all the roots pretty much equally.) The hyperthorny part that you see is soft because it has grown so fast; it will harden up with time. But THAT cane will be sick.
I also have a friend locally whose husband took a chain saw to the base of a climber because only the south half showed RRD: the north side survived, but they took the south side off, at first and the uglies only came up from the isolated southern root side.
You are in Wiscosin and aren't getting the many months of growth that some of us get. It may take longer for RRD to start affecting your roses in spring. You growing season may also give the vector mites a shorter season to mature so your conditions may mimic southern Iowa where the mite populations only spread in huge numbers in fall. (I think in my part of the world there's a short spread in spring, as well.)

Right now, I think you've got plants that aren't totally full of RRD. I think that's why you're seeing some good canes and a few bad ones. I've never let the disease go past the first cane in my garden, well, not intentionally, sometimes it has spread really fast into a second cane while I'm still trying to be in denial.

Hope this helps.
karl_bapst_rosenut
15 years ago
Listen to Ann! If anyone knows RRD it's her.
The rose I mentioned with RRD was John Cabot.
Also in denial I removed all the infected canes and the roots they were growing from. New growth looked good but suddenly everything went south. The remaining bush went completely RRD. I bit the bullet and dug up the remaining roots and burned them.
A rugosa, Jessica Lauren, is planted in it's place. It's suppose to get quite large so should fill in the hole quite well. Inspection of all the bushes near the John Cabot show no sign of the disease. I hope it was contained in that one large bush. I've not been able to find any other infected bushes in the area.
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Well, no one has ever talked about this, but I think maybe some of you would like to try it and see if it helps. We have had a hell of a time on our red clay soil, beets and apple trees wouldn't grow at all. Turns out that all of the southern red and yellow clays are short of boron, and improving them by raising the pH and organic matter makes boron even less available. The "virus" in our tomatoes and in some potted apple rootstocks (in improved clay, makes it easier to just stick them in the ground without worrying about incompatible soils) has turned out to be boron deficiency symptoms. I'm not saying that RRD is a deficiency, We've had no RRD show up in our garden even though our boron levels were very low the first few years I had roses. But I have read that a boron deficiency allows viruses to grow faster. I'm assuming that Patricia in AL is on red clay??? You have to be careful with boron, it's toxic if overdone. The safe amount to add per year is 11 pounds of borax per acre. You can use the 20 Mule Team borax from the grocery detergent section. I sprinkle it like it was fairy dust, and after 2 winters beets grow fine and the apple trees seem to be growing a bit. If you'll put a pinch of borax in a gallon of water and water it in for every plant you really don't want to catch the virus, you might save the ones around the perimeter of the infestation. If you'll do the same for infected plants, maybe cutting them back to healthy growth will suffice and it won't reappear. And if you'll go out and throw the stuff along some infected multiflora fencerows, maybe we'll find out if boron is some help for slowing or stopping the infection. Be generous with the boron on the multiflora weeds, it'll give you some idea just how much you can use without killing anything, and I guess you won't mind if a few of them keel over, LOL. We don't have much multiflora in our county, thank God, but Cannon county is overgrown with it. I'm told that someone in France in WWII was really impressed and sent seed home, planted fencerows with it on about 5 farms he eventually owned. It hasn't showed up in my garden or on the couple of wild plants on the property, but it got some plants belonging to a farmer who's collected old roses from old farmsites, he's a mile from us. Let us all hear if you try this. It might sound sound silly, but Ann has told me that back where the RRD first started, at the experiment station in Nebraska, there is no RRD anymore. I wonder... did they change something about their liming practices????
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athenainwi
15 years ago
I think you're right Ann about RRD being more common in the fall in Wisconsin. My Moondance had RRD symptoms in two canes last fall which I removed. This spring it was fine and healthy. A few days ago I saw two new canes with RRD symptoms. I'm not sure if it is a recurrence of the disease from last year that was slow to show up or if it is a new infection. I cut those canes out too. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on it.
Patty W. zone 5a Illinois
Original Author
15 years ago
Thank-you kindly for your replies. Denial takes many forms. A shoveling I must go. Agian thanks I say with sadness in my heart. Pat
anntn6b
15 years ago
Pat,
Sigh. IF you have really good soil (I don't) would you watch and see if you can see any physical differences in the way the roots look on one side versus the other? I know roots' growth is constrained by the soil, but I wonder if in a light loam, we'd see the roots which have the 'virus' in them growimg more than the uninfected roots?
I thank you for bringing this up. I think your and athenainwi's observations may help other colder climate rose growers learn to watch for the RRD bounce back later than what we see in the south.
carla17
15 years ago
I go with Ann's fall thinking too. Last year I saw RRD symptoms on a noisette. Spring came and nothing showed up.
Pat, I am sorry for the rrd in your garden. I had to remove a mature Mons. Tillier and toss it.

Carla

Ann a question on RRD am I nuts?

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