Do you just have a planting mix composed of amendments and no native soil? Best to have at least 50% native soil if not 75-80%%. A bunch of amendments isn't a natural media for roots.

Can you add soil from another area of your garden? I doubt you would infect the new rose from the old soil, but it doesn't hurt to refresh the area with other (good) soil from your yard.

No I don't have anywhere I don't think that I can get more native soil from. Hmmm... Have to think on that one. I figured that the amendments are going to be sitting there all winter until April settling in and stuff (I'm not getting the rose until spring as it's on preorder), so I didn't think I needed that.
I've done the same before with good results though. I don't think it'll be too much of a problem.

I have several raised beds that contain no native soil whatsoever. Some of my best roses grow in those beds. Perhaps the roots of some of those roses eventually reach native soil, but I'm not certain of that. Also, I'm growing an increasing number of roses in large pots. Some of those roses have been in pots for a number of years now. The medium I use for the pots definitely contains no native soil.

Have you experienced the transmission of RMV to a healthy rose from segments of roots that might have remained after the removal of an infected plant? Perhaps it's possible for transmition to take place in that way, but I've personally never experienced it, altho I have replaced more than a few virused plants.

Deborah Golino, Director of UC Davis Foundation Plant Services virus testing,recommended a wait of 2 years (quoted on page 4 in the June 2010 newsletter of the Sierra Foothills Rose Society).

"how to deal with virus-infected roses. Cut off
the infected rose to within inches of the
ground and paint stump immediately with
Round-up. Wait two weeks and remove rootstock.
After two years it is okay to replant a
rose if you see no new shoots."

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

If its going to sit over the winter thats going to help a lot.

Have any of you had personal experience of probable/suspected transmission of RMV via root fragments left lingering in the bed?

Hard to say whether there was transmission, since most of us don't know if our roses are RMV-free. I had a modestly (I thought) virused budded Altissimo that I removed. We've been digging out its Dr Huey rootstock ever since. The latest plant from the roots is a good 10 or 12 feet from the original planting hole. Every Dr Huey leaf is grossly yellow and green with RMV. Soon after I removed Altissimo, the neighboring own root climber planted 6 feet away from Altissimo showed RMV infection on the leaves of only the one basal closest to Altissimo. It's an own root plant with about 10 basals. I cut off and then tore out that basal and all the roots attached to it. I've never seen RMV on the neighboring rose since then. Probably a coincidence. I remove RMV-infected plants from my garden. I haven't planted in that location because I know there's RMV-infested Dr Huey in the area.

How old was your Altissimo? Was it grown out for quite some time or shovel pruned soon after knowing that it was virused? My Maria was only in the ground two seasons so I'm hoping that's not too long, gulp.. I haven't seen any signs of a Dr Huey at all.

Kenstar,
In northeast Ohio, when you go out riding around in spring, do you see lots of Dr. Huey blooming?
In my part of Tennessee, Dr. Huey is the most common rose (or at least it was before Knockouts) that wasn't a wild rose.
In any area in the east where Dr. Huey roots can survive overwinter after the death of the scions, you will see them in the spring. And that can be your personal guide to whether or not you need to wait two years.

Actually, I don't see much roses in general while riding around at all! There are a lot of "knock-out" roses in some yards, no climbers at all, and very few hybrid teas that I can see. Even on the sides of the roads I don't see any roses that I can think of.
Maybe not so much of a problem here?

I dunno folks -- I remove and replant roses all the time, and I've never seen one get noticeable RMV that didn't already have a noticeable case of the virus when I got it. I also plant roses with RMV (and which are unavailable in commerce disease free) right next to disease free specimens all the time. Planting in a hole that once had an RMV-infected rose would present a VERY LOW risk of transmission, and in my opinion, not one worth worrying about, as a practical matter.

While there's a theoretical possibility of transmission through leftover pieces of infected root, I think there is no real danger of just going ahead and replanting what you want, where you want it. There are opposing views in the research field as to whether transmission of RMV via living roots is a valid concern. I think once the roots are dead, that would make transmission of disease even less likely.

Plant away.

p.s. I think Maria Stern is probably one of the cultivars that is not available in commerce RMV-free. It comes from that era in roses where most everything was budded to diseased Dr. Huey, and even getting an "own root" version will probably trace back to a grafted, diseased plant as the source of the cutting, and thus will also have the disease. Unless someone at your vender can tell you that they got cleaned budwood for their mother plant from someplace like Malcolm Manners shop in Florida where they heat treat to kill the virus, or from the Foundation Plant Services program at UC Davis, your new Maria Stern plant will likely be just as virused as the plant you just shovel pruned.

I do not shovel prune for virus unless I know I can get a virus-free specimen first. Virus-free specimens are fairly rare for roses that were first put in commerce in the 1950's and 1960's, and especially for the lesser well-known varieties, where no one has made a special effort to "clean" any mother plant for that variety.

Getting an own root specimen does not guarantee "RMV-free."

Here is a link that might be useful: UC Davis list of available clean roses

Thankyou for the info. I guess I shouldn't worry so much.
I am not planting another Maria Stern, however, I am planting a Livin Easy rose in it's place.

kentstar

For someone in zone 10, there probably is very little chance of mosaic type virus spread as the rose's immune system is effective at high temperatures.

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Concerning Davis's indexed roses. Davis has recently published a paper where they announced that they found an aphid spread virus in their indexed rose plantings (see page 511):

"In this test, RSDaV was detected in many different rose species and cultivars from the Foundation Rose Collection at FPS. In all, 129 plants in this collection were tested, and 77 were positive for RSDaV. Some of the hybrid rose cultivars tested positive for RSDaV included Queen Elizabeth, China Doll, Heirloom, Lowell Thomas, Jack Frost, New Dawn, Uncle Joe, Bridal White, Butterscotch, and Cynthia. It is interesting that the virus was detected in more than 69 plants in two rows (total number of plants in these rows was 89) of the collection which were planted in the mid 1990s. In all, 162 samples of R. multiflora from the virusindexing rose blocks also were assayed in the spring and RSDaV was found in 94 plants. The majority of RT-PCR-positive R. multiflora plants were symptomatic. Another 40 additional plants from the same virus-indexing blocks were tested in the summer and 6 were positive."

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