I don't know about anyone else but I've never received RRD infected roses in any order. I think you'll be safe.
I've never heard of anyone who's received one. I get roses and cuttings from all over the country. Unlike Rose Mosiac Virus, RRD symptoms show up quickly so infected stock can be removed and destroyed before it's distributed.
Perhaps Ann will offer more insight.

I can tell you that RRD has shown up in rose nurseries and that the nursery owners and managers have acted appropriately.

For them, roses are a crop and they watch their crop more carefully than most of us. When something goes wrong, they recognize the problem early and in every case I know of, they reacted quickly and correctly.

I don't think that the disease will be spread by nursery sales. I do worry a lot about sellers on places like e-bay who may not be having their growing areas inspected by their state ag. people.

When the O.P. lives, there is a danger that the disease may still exist in wild roses. It first appeared in mountains in the west (WY AND northern CA) and has also been in the Canadian great plains.

As long as rose growers watch their gardens, not just for RRD but for things like Chili Thrips, Verticillium wilts, Pythopithophora ramorum (sorry, but I'm not sure the spelling of the Genus of that fungus), there gardens will survive. The worst thing is to believe that more fertilizer will cure any problem. Because it won't.

Know your supplier. Pretty much sums it up.

Dear Lavender;
You certainly have asked the question that so many of us have often thought about. I will take a moment to share a recent experience I had for illustrative purposes.
This summer I received a shipment of bands. I intended to direct plant them in my garden. However, some of them were miniscule. So I instead transplanted them into 1 gallon containers and they were placed at the edge of my porch; far from my garden. Within a few days I noticed that three of them were not doing well. They had what I would call red spider mites; which are almost microscopic.
These three bushes were put in the garbage. The remaining bands from the order continued in isolation for an additional 6 weeks. None of them showed any signs of any problem.
The point I'm trying to make. I will since this order always repot any bands and keep them isolated.
There will not be any mention of where the bands came from as I truly believe that at the beginning of any type of infestation such as this any nursery could accidentally ship problem roses.
Thank you for posting this question. I look forward to reading what other members think.
Jeannie

I guess I was looking for something a little more reassuring...like nursery owners have their stock in a greenhouse, where the mites can't reach it. Or, they keep the stock in a holding area for x number of weeks, to make sure there are no mites on the plants.

As for our area, no RRD. We don't have the wild rose problem that I've read about on the forum. Some people have them growing throughout fields and open spaces. We only have a few, right along the road and some distance from the house...and I've never seen any that looked diseased.

Jeannie- I guess we were posting at the same time :)

Thank you for your example and I'm glad you didn't mention the nursery. I don't want to cause anyone problems, but I do have some concerns.

You make an excellent point and perhaps we should isolate plants, before putting them in the garden. I don't really have a good place to do this, but I can see the advantages.

My other concern involved buying flowers this next spring, from stores and nurseries that also sell roses. I buy a lot of annuals from big box stores, on sale, just to give the garden some color (I have about 3 frost free months, so it's more convenient to buy flats) but now, I'm thinking it might be better to winter sow or maybe even get one of those little plastic greenhouses, to start my own seeds.

Not only would it save some money, but it would also allow me to have a better variety of flowers and veggies. We don't always have a great selection, in our area. Something to think about...

RRD doesn't spread like wildfire. If you inspect your plants even once a week, you would probably notice bizarre growth and get rid of the plant before infection of others would be at all likely. In the situations where RRD has spread throughout gardens, the gardeners didn't know what they were dealing with and let it go for a season or more.

I've been a party to removing several infected roses from public places, and the only obvious intra-garden infection involved a couple of big ground-cover plants that were laying all over each other. Otherwise it's one case in a year and another a couple of years later from external agency.

I soak all my new arrivals in bands up to the tips of their tallest canes in water for a half hour. Spider mites often come from nurseries (lots of them), and that's an easy way to protect the rest of your garden.

Spider mites are just a function of rose growing -- we get them every year when the weather is to their liking (i.e. hot, windy and dry), and at those times, you just have to spray for them. And spider mites are usually just as happy in greenhouses, too, so having only greenhouse-grown roses is no protection.

But soaking your plants will keep them from coming in that way.

Kathy

Interesting thought about annuals. Not sure but I'll mull it some.
Kathy thank you I wasnt aware that soaking would help. Thank you.
Jeannie

What Kathy said. Definitely, drown the little buggers.

Michaelg- I'm a little confused, since I thought the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens were seriously affected by RRD, as were many rose gardens in different parts of the country.

If it's so easy to check for RRD and remove it from the garden, why didn't they do that? Are people very uneducated about RRD? Is it difficult to identify, if you haven't seen it before? Theses are some of the things that concern me.

Dipping the bands in water sounds like a good idea, but will this kill the mites? Do they lay eggs or anything that would continue to survive on the roses?

Thank you for the information :)

A corner of the BBG was seriously infected with RRD. They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what.
When DH and I visited there as tourists three summers ago, we saw it and sought out the head rosarian who had never heard of RRD.
She wasn't sure anything could be done about it because any actions had to be taken up and approved by a committee/board/ etc. before they could do anything that might change the garden at all.

About mites- drowning of same. Talking about spider mites, the more common heat loving, web making, scourge of many rose gardens- that can be wiped out by streams of water.
Not to be confused with eriophyid mites ONE species of which vectors RRD.

Ann- It's interesting that you mention visiting BBG and talking to their (then) head rosarian, because I just found this link and posted it on Jenswrens' thread. Hopefully, her ideas will work :)

Here is a link that might be useful: BBG dealing with RRD

The BBG is surrounded by skyscrapers and multistory buildings. In that, they are lucky because they are less likely to have an infected multiflora fencerow 0.3 miles upwind.

Unfortunately they have the eastern US upwind and the disease has spread so they'll never be able to relax completely.

If you start building up a collection of prized plants, then you start quarantining new arrivals to protect your collection. It's not something I thought about as a beginning gardener, but it is something that comes up a ways down the road when you've collected some gems or rarities that you really don't want to lose.

Ordinary spider mites have nothing to do with RRD.

No worry about introducing spider mites to your yard, because they are already in everybody's yard, infesting a vast range of plants including roses, but usually harmlessly under control by natural predators. Spider mite control is not about eliminating them, but about maintaining balance. Avoid using insecticides, especially Sevin and Merit. Deal with outbreaks by spraying the undersides of leaves with water at a time when they will dry promptly.

The different, microscopically tiny mites that spread RRD are also everywhere. They do not need controlling, which is good because they are uncontrollable. The danger of RRD comes from infected roses in the neighborhood.

>I guess I was looking for something a little more reassuring...like nursery owners have their stock in a greenhouse, where the mites can't reach it.

Lavender Lass,

For the most part, yes, this would be a big reassurance, but far from a guarantee. If you have a mind to imagine that it's possible, then you can also imagine multiple ways that infected mites could get inside a greenhouse. There's just a reduced probability with a greenhouse-grown plant.

It's terribly interesting that you happen to ask this question at this point, since this is exactly the kind of thinking that has gone through my mind recently and intensively.

I returned a shipment to a (good) nursery recently. Of the four roses in the shipment, one was infected. That is, I'm certain in my own mind that it was infected, but it was nothing that most people would have noticed particularly; the infection was at an early point.

I'm not going to post the name of the nursery. I don't _know_ that the rose was infected in an official way, and I have no right to start up a rumour that could affect their business. Hopefully, they will be hyper-alert for any other roses showing symptoms now after hearing from me what I thought. Anyway, you could easily put down my opinion to over-zealous concern, hyperinflating symptoms that could have been normal or the result of other factors. So don't ask for the name of the nursery; I'm not going to tell it and I'm not going to post a picture of their plants either.

I will, however, detail some of my thinking just a couple of weeks ago here by copying some of the parts of the message I sent to the nursery. Quote:

"Of the four roses, I'm certain that one has early symptoms of Rose Rosette Disease. I unfortunately have quite a bit of experience with watching that disease progress here now, and I no longer wait around until it gets to the final stages where most anyone can notice that the rose is diseased. I can well imagine that your packer might not have noticed anything at a glance and I don't blame you/him/her for not noticing the problem before shipping.

"I go with the criteria that rosarian Ann Peck uses for herself before tossing a rose to Rose Rosette Disease: two symptoms if already growing in a yard with one or more roses that already have the disease, and three symptoms if no disease has been found where the rose has been growing. In this case, I've found more than three symptoms, so we've already bagged up the plant. At the most I've seen between zero and two symptoms on the other three roses, and wouldn't toss them because of their appearance at this point, but since they were so intertwined in the shipping container with the diseased rose, I feel the risk of having one or more of the infected mites crossing over onto them is too great to keep any of the roses.

"The infected rose is General Schablikine. It's the same variety that I originally had last fall, so I know what a General Schablikine looks like normally... [That] rose was in perfect condition. Last fall we [also] had the barest of initial symptoms on a Cornelia and I almost tossed that rose then (wish I had). By the earliest time in spring, the symptoms on Cornelia and Prosperity were well advanced and there was no longer any question as to the disease... but by then the problem had already spread in the yard to other roses, probably by the numerous nibbling rabbits or deer here carrying around infected mites on their chins.) Anyway, I remember clearly the ways in which that first General Schablikine changed as it came down with symptoms this spring, progressing fairly quickly to multiple symptoms. This General Schablikine today looks like the first one I was watching earlier in the spring before tossing it.

"The Rose Rosette Diseased symptoms I see on the General Shablikine you sent include: some asymmetric leaves, including some midribs that aren't straight; some asymmetry on the arrangement of the leaflets on the petiole; too short an internodal distance on portions of some canes (so many basal breaks that you have to move the leaves aside to be able to see where their stems connect); a number of leaves with smaller than expected leaflet size; increased thorniness over that which is common for General Schablikine, including some thorns that are prominently colored much darker than most of the thorns; leaves on only some portions of the plant show some (mild) chlorosis; some of the stipules are widened over what is normal on the rest of the plant(to a small degree); leaves on some areas of the plant are noticeably smaller than in other areas, including areas experiencing new growth [with larger, normal leaves]; and extreme bumpiness on some (many) of the leaves, coming in batches together on some, but not all, areas of the plant.

"... As I've continued to think about it now, I'm going to bag up the other three roses tomorrow. I just can't assume that the other three have acquired no infected mites after being up so close in the shipping conditions with the rose I know is infected."

I returned all four of the roses at the request of the nursery. Hopefully, they will hold them in isolation. I would not have been willing to keep any of the roses--all of which I really, really wanted.

I know this message isn't terribly reassuring. I wish I could be reassuring, but I just can't. I was reassured by multiple and well-meaning posters (on another forum) last fall when my gut told me that my once very normal and healthy Cornelia was coming down with Rose Rosette Disease and that I should be tossing it. But feeling my own lack of experience at that point, I thought I ought to ask more experienced growers than I was before acting so drastically. So I ended up taking poor advice over my own intuition, advice from people who were erroneously looking at end-stage symptoms in a few pictures on the internet and pronouncing a rose disease-free if they didn't see a similar picture here. I don't think any of those responding had even experienced the disease in their own yards, or if any had, they'd allowed the disease to get to a full-blown stage before diagnosing it--exactly what I wanted to avoid. My Cornelia ended up with the full-blown symptoms this spring early.

Unfortunately, I do have plenty of experience with Rose Rosette Disease now. One thing I know: it matters whether you catch that disease early. Minor, non-alarming symptoms *matter* so it's wise to look over your plants carefully when a shipment arrives and then keep it up. Keep looking over all your plants regularly as they exist in your yard, hoping that if RRD arrives by any route, you'll be able to catch it early. Any disease that can arrive with an unfortunate wind gust is unpredictable and can affect your yard that hasn't had anything new added in many years time.

One last thought: reread Ann Peck's book regularly, so when you're looking at your plants, you're more likely to notice what needs to be noticed.

Best wishes,
Mary

This is not going to be a popular response, but I offer it anyway ... from the perspective of a nursery owner.

Whether the pest is spider mites, Japanese Beetles, rose slugs, snails, RRD, or Dutch Elm Disease, it is ultimately the buyer's responsibility to make sure that there are no 'cooties' in any new plant material before adding that new plant to their garden's general population. As a nursery owner, I take extraordinary care to prevent the spread of any sort of pest, in my garden and in my nursery stock, but I can't be perfect. If a plant in my inventory doesn't show signs of any disease, and I have no reason to believe that a disease exists in that plant, I will legally ship that plant to whoever orders it ... period.

I walk my entire garden weekly looking for any sign of it. To date, in my 4-year-old garden of 800+ roses, I have had exactly 4 plants that showed any sign of infection -- two last year (Daydream and Mandeville Pink Rambler) and two this year (Glenn Dale and Grumpy). I take appropriate measures to prevent the spread of the disease throughout my garden by removing the affected plants. That's the best I can do. I do not use insecticides in the garden ... it upsets the balance of pests/beneficials, and can make any pest situation much worse than it was in the first place.

In my experience, and in the experience of other local rose growers that I have discussed this with, RRD is a fact of life around here, as it is in many other parts of the county ... much like the aforementioned Japanese Beetles. As rose growers, we must educate ourselves and be vigilant, but we must not be paranoid. I have seen way too many instances here of new rose gardeners getting panicky about nice healthy new growth on their roses. Familiarize yourself with the characteristics of the roses you grow! When new growth exists that does not match those characteristics, begin to ask yourself WHY it doesn't match.

Most importantly, we must not let the fear of RRD diminish our love for rose gardening.

That's my 2 cents,
Connie
(Hartwood Roses)

>This is not going to be a popular response, but I offer it anyway ... from the perspective of a nursery owner.

>That's my 2 cents

Hi Connie,

It's popular with me. The alternative to your extremely responsible policies is to have no one willing to risk growing roses and offering them for sale. No one here would be likely to want that.

There are no guarantees in the many things in life that aren't completely controllable in every respect. Roses are just one of those things. You do the best you can in what you are trying to do, and that's all anyone can ask, from whichever direction you are looking, as a nursery grower or as a rose purchaser.

Thank you for what you do.

Best wishes,
Mary

Thank you all for your responses.

I would not order roses from a nursery back east, mostly because the shipping would be so expensive...and I have some nice nurseries in our area.

While I doubt I'll get many more roses, mainly because I'm running out of space, I might get a few rugosas for the kitchen garden. Since these are in a different area and downwind of the rest of the gardens, I think it will be fine. I also have a place I like to order from, that is close enough to pick up the roses, rather than ship them.

So far, none of my roses have shown any symptoms and I'm very grateful. I'm also glad that I ordered my roses last spring and they have all done so well.

This wasn't meant to scare people away from roses, but rather to see what should be done, with the recent concerns about RRD.

Mary- Can I ask you what side of the Rockies the nursery you ordered from, is located?

>Mary- Can I ask you what side of the Rockies the nursery you ordered from, is located?

There's no harm in asking, and you have a legitimate reason for wanting to know. You are like all of us in trying to avoid the disease in whatever ways you can.

But the answer is that I meant it when I said I wouldn't tell. That obviously would include playing Twenty Questions regarding anything about the nursery. It just wouldn't be right for me to tell, and I won't change my mind about that.

Best wishes,
Mary

Mary- I respect your decision, but this is not 20 questions. I'm not trying to trick you into anything or narrow down the list of possibilities.

The reason I ask is that what research I've done has said that RRD is much more serious east of the Rockies and has not spread west of the Rockies. However, Ann has said that it was spotted in some wild multiflora in a few locations. I have not seen it reported in gardens, though. If the nursery was west of the Rockies, I thought the current information should be updated and made available to gardeners.

Many people on the west side of the country don't think RRD is their problem. If that's NOT the case, I would rather we wake up now, then end up with the problems BBG and other large gardens, parks and rose owners have faced in other parts of the country.

Even on the east side, many people don't realize the threat. Remember that ludicrous article by the gal who was supposed to be an expert on the local environment? RRD is a wonderful way to control wild multiflora. What a joke!

RRD hasn't (to my knowledge) been found on the multiflora that has gone wild catastrophically in John Day WMA in Oregon. I know someone who is watching that area carefully. I don't think it's been on any of the crash plantings of Multiflora along the highways either.

First RRD was on a rose near Lander Wyoming and up in the mountains west of Redding CA.
Oddly, the vector mite was first described east of San Diego, but the rose there was healthy.
More recently Jim Amrine saw it on a wild rose (not multiflora) south of Salt Lake City.
Baldo Villegas has a widely used photo of RRD from (I think it's) R. woodsi up in the mountains of CA.

And it's been in the very cold Canadian Great Plains.

Ann- No one in our area even talks about it. We have a beautiful rose garden at Manito Park (the park was designed by the Olmstead Brothers) in Spokane, WA. Everyone seems to think it's only been a problem for gardens and parks in the east, if they know about it at all. If that's not the case, I think we should be more concerned.

I'm hoping that some of the companion planting being done at BBG is going to make a difference. That's the way I garden and I think it's better for the bugs, birds, etc...also very pretty and something is always blooming, even when the OGRs are done for the summer.

>Even on the east side, many people don't realize the threat.

It seems to me that it's relatively early in the knowns on this disease. And it's always easy to draw incorrect conclusions based on limited research. Whatever you do will be based on assumptions to a certain extent, but it seems safer to me to assume that all gardens, including western gardens, would be vulnerable to Rose Rosette Disease.

My two cents worth is theoretical. But I'd guess that unless a cure can be found, eventually no place will be safe from that infected mite. (Unless it's a place where the mite cannot live at all for some reason--like the South Pole.)

The key word here is *eventually* and no one will know how long that means until/unless it happens. Hopefully, it won't happen anytime soon, but there's no way to guess at random events like that.

Clearly, the farther away you are from a reported infection, the better. If I lived on another continent, I'd mostly forget about this for the time being, but not once the disease had hit the continent.

If the eventual spread to everywhere takes a long time, that ought to leave an opening of time for someone to find a cure, and stop the spread in its tracks. Wouldn't it would be wonderful to see lots and lots of research aimed directly at finding a cure! And every rose grower who is quick, not slow, at disposing of infected plants helps just a little bit to slow down the problem's spread too.

If you're only considering how fast it will spread throughout the United States, my impression is that its rate of spread is still increasing. And you have to add in a huge amount of travel between locations; who knows how many ways those mites might travel besides by blowing around on a puff of wind? I think all rose growers all over our continent ought to be paying regular attention to their roses, with an awareness of what Rose Rosette Disease looks like.

But there's no need to worry so much about it that you aren't enjoying your roses. Just keep an eye out, which you probably do anyway.

Best wishes,
Mary

Another approach is to breed RRD resistant roses. Particularly, now that genetically modified plants are getting rather easy to produce, this may be the ultimate solution.

I have RRD in my garden this year for the first time and it is driving me crazy. MY paranoia is so high that every new bit of growth, every dark thorn, every red stem is suspect. I've pulled out several roses and part of me wonders if I jumped the gun. Fortunately, I know the source and am in the process destroying it. I refuse to become paranoid about my suppliers. Respectable, professional dealers do take care. Yes, s* happens, and one should look over new arrivals carefully, but one can't live in fear.

There's living in fear and there's taking precautions.

I live in an "apple maggot quarantine area" since most roads lead (eventually) to Wenatchee. I guess if roses were as big an industry as grapes and apples (in this area) there would be more concern. So far, most people don't seem to be that aware of it.

My heart goes out to the person who found RRD in their garden today (I believe she's in Pennsylvania). It's so hard to read about people finding this disease, when it may have already infected their other roses. I hope she's caught it in time.

As for me, it's just not worth the risk. I spent a lot of money (for me) on my roses this spring and if the deer don't get them (not so far) then I certainly don't want to lose them to RRD.

I pitched out one infected rose this past week--I wasn't sure what it was, but when the red leaves failed to turn green, as would be usual, and when the twisted, deformed stems didn't straighten, I knew what I had. I mention this first experience with RRd because I got this plant from a local nursery. I only bought this one rose from this source this year, so I assume the RRd came in with the rose--Mellow Yellow, by the way.

Catrose, you are lucky to know the source. I don't know where my infection could have come from. Does anyone know if RRD can be transmitted via wild blackberry bushes? They are in the rose family.

Wild Blackberries aren't a source.
The bramble family has a lot more diseases than roses (and have been studied better because they're a crop.)
There's a rust of blackberries that has (besides the rust) symptoms that look like RRD with some contortion of stems and cruddy looking little leaves, but it seems to just be a fungus.
This isn't to say that the disease RRD won't pass into brambles and/or back.
Until the disease RRD gets thoroughly studied, and if it's a virus or phytoplasma or ??? get's replicated in a lab so a PCR test can be made, then we can't say for sure that it ISN'T any particular disease of a related plant, even a distantly related plant.
I had a wild blackberry I tore out because I didn't like the way the leaves looked (and it had been a good, productive one), because there wasn't any way to test it, and I'd rather whatever it was ceased to exist.

Once upon a time, scientists had some leeway to follow interesting problems, as well as the problems they could get grants to study. Nowadays, the great majority require grant money. It's the way of the world. Take a look at the CRIS reports of who in agriculture is getting money to study Rose Rosette. Precious few dollars are flowing into this problem. (Rant: a lot more dollars flowed in to encourage the spread of RRD.)

Ann- Why do you think that is? Have the ARS and other rose groups called for studies, or was RRD rarely talked about? Maybe with so many places now being affected, there will be more demand that something be done.

I can't believe (even with the current economy) that there isn't any grant money to figure out what's causing RRD and how to get rid of it, or keep it from spreading. I just don't know if some places take it seriously.

Washington State University researches all kinds of plant topics (they have a farm studies program) but I don't even know if they realize the threat from RRD. As I said earlier, it's not really a topic in our area. I'd never heard of it, until I saw what was happening on the rose forum.

The ARS appears to be "very concerned" sic, as they have chosen to present the "latest up to date" sic, "national information" sic, on their website. Here is a quote from that article:

"[This is an updated (to July 31, 2001) version of an article that first appeared in the House & Garden Section of The Dallas Morning News on January 1, 1999.]"

Here is a link that might be useful: ARS article

Roses are ornamentals. Grains & other food crops are totally different, and have active futures markets where trading occurs. That trading is dependent upon yields, quality, etc. When there is a market with an underlying asset being traded, there will always be research & development devoted to improving the asset. Roses have no such market.

Where I live the ag lobby is massive. They deal with all sorts of issues ranging from carbon credits to the % of ethanol they can get Congress to allow in our gasoline. Maybe if we could get the CBOE to begin trading on Rose Futures we might get a little attention? :)

Actually, I just sent an e-mail to WSU, asking the agricultural research department if they knew about RRD, were they already researching it, and if not, would they please look into it. We'll see what happens...

WSU is a farm university, but farming in our area is very diverse and they also help with organic farming and even gardening, so they might be interested in RRD. As I said, no one around here really talks about it, and WSU gets a lot of grant money, so maybe they'll look into it.

I did tell them that I found out about it on this forum, so hopefully, they'll start reading about it, if nothing else. Bill Gates gives out a LOT of money, even on our side of the state, so let's hope he or his wife like roses! :)

If not for the ARS, there would be no website of ours about it.
When it first got bad here, over a decade ago, I gathered as much info as I could, and it wasn't much beyond "doesn't affect cultivated roses" and we started studying it in twice a month trips to the LMU rose garden where it was a serious infestation.
I contacted the ARS, got the info about what it takes for articles for them, did a detailed three part article and had it rejected because it was too long and if I could condense it to 1500 words and two or three pictures, they would reconsider it as it had been a couple of years since they did a piece on RRD.
This damn near broke my heart and spirit. I could see the problem growing, the lack of info out there and no way to get the word out. Then via Gardenweb, we got a call from a garden in northern Virginia about RRD in their garden and they needed pictures to confirm it.
We (mostly my computer literate husband) turned the three articles into three chapters of what would evolve into our e-book.
I also greatly condensed the material from it into an article that appeared in the American Rose. Lots of people who receive the magazine never read it; I can't tell you how many people never saw those three pages.

Last January's American Rose also had a bit from me about RRD; that evolved from something I had written for a newsletter within the ARS.

I was asked to give a talk about RRD at the ARS National in Philadelphia, and I had a two page hand out summarizing the talk. Those two pages got a fair amount of reprinting with ARS newletters and also led to some talks, some with good attendance, many with marginal attendances.

I've given up being frustrated and just try to put what I know out there in a format that can be referenced. If anybody cares to, the bibliography in the e-book is the place they should start, rather than starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel.

A decade ago, I said that the problem wouldn't be solved in my lifetime. I've no reason to change that assessment.

Thank you, anntn. Sounds like I need to emininate the blackberries.

Just an update- I hadn't heard anything from WSU, so I sent the e-mail again...and this time I got a response. They're considering it, so I sent them so more information and suggested they visit the forum.

They forwarded an article, from a university in Virginia, stating RRD is a disease that's transmitted from wild roses in undergrowth. I explained to them that now it's believed to be a mite that's spreading RRD and the problems with BBG. I'm hoping one of the researchers will take an interest.

Although we don't have RRD in our area (eastern Washington) WSU was the first state university in the country, to have a Master Gardener's program...so I'm hoping they'll at least think about researching this problem :)

the article from Vrginia is probably the two pager from Virginia Tech. Most of the info in it is from my e-book and I know the people who put the pages together.

The one person in the PNW with expertise is Dr. Fred Crowe in Oregon. Decades ago, he wrote one of the early papers on RRD when he was working in Kansas City and RRD appeared there.

Since then his career path has taken him to Oregon and a different part of the plant kingdom, but he has continued to watch for RRD appearing in some the the places where multiflora has gone wild (John Day Wildlife Mgmt Area) as well as along some of the interstates where it was planted as a nature-friendly crash shrub that would let people survive collisions.

In the next couple of months there'll be additional info coming out- maybe it will open some ears.

Ann- WSU has show some interest, if they can find funding. Research grants are hard to come by, in all areas, right now. I don't know if they'll pursue this or not, but I told them a lot of people (with money) love roses and I'm sure there would be funding, especially back east.

Whether they decide to pursue this or not, at least they're more informed than they were before. Maybe that's half the battle!

I forwarded a few articles and asked them to visit the rose forum. Hopefully, someone will take an interest. I also suggested they ask Melinda Gates (wife to Bill Gates) if she likes roses. They fund lots of research in our state...including WSU :)