Jax, That fortuniana survived for a decade without catching a mite was the hope, that and its distance from R. multiflora on the part of both of its parents. I wasn't going for a genetic salvation, but I hoped that there might be a cultural barrier tied to the preferred growth times of banksia and laevigata. I had hoped that the 'off' growth cycle of fortuniana might be a saving grace, that it grows through winter when the mites aren't out. Mine was relatively dormant through summer, and post bloom spring pruning sufficed. An example is R. setigera which doesn't get RRD often, even though R. multifloras in the same fencerows (unsprayed with herbicides) get RRD rather easily. R. setigera just doesn't get 'that' large nor is it actively growing through summers here. Not exactly a cultural barrier , but a reduced propensity to contract the disease. There are so many instances where one rose appears to have avoided infection, and the more we know, we find that others of the same cultivar are infected. Wind tunnels with a speeded up wind speed are not practical at all (although they work). I have always expected RRD to infect all roses, but I had hoped that some barriers might exist in nature, a lesser propensity to infection for the ones that go to near dormancy in summer, ones who have a limited window of opportunity for the mites to feed on undifferentiated meristem tissue in axillary buds or at the ends of broken stems (the latter seems to be the problem here). Or maybe have really tight buds that the mite's feeder tube can't get through. As to a pest that will take out the eriophyid mite: it's out there and was described early on in the Allington, Staplin and Viehmeyer paper. The predators are conventional spider mites; in the isolation labs at the University of Nebraska they were trying to study the eriophyids, but spidermites kept getting in and destroying the eriophyid populations. Amrine and his students have also found some unnamed species of predaceous thrips will feed on erophyids AND thrips. I don't use insecticides or acaricids on my roses. I haven't in a long time.

Hi. Jim Amrine and his students are the ones who worked with the mites. Jim thinks that to get the (now we know it's a) virus into the vascular system of the rose, the move is through the cheliceral stylets of the mites. There are also two appendages that sort of look like "hands" in that they have a stalk and a bunch of things that emerge from the bottom of the stalk. Those things can just whir when the mite decides for them to. I don't think anyone knows why. Just translating our thoughts to something that small whose mind is probably a series of if-then statements, and not much more. Can we outwit something that has no wits? Jim is the one who came up with the very logical idea that if the stylets get into undifferentiated meristemic tissue, and put the virus there, then the virus can get into the vascular system. Getting the virus into a pre-existing phloem cell is almost impossible otherwise, because there is no part of the mite that is long enough in microns to reach into the plant into the phloem. In my ebook, take a look at the line drawing of the mite. Now to put that into a size that you know. That mite is the size of a bedroom slipper that would fit on one aphid foot. From what I've read frass transmission of viruses is known for beetles and one of the professors who studied RRD in Arkansas also did the beetle frass work. Check Dr. Rose Gergerich for references. The only cut apart body view of an eriophyid mite that I recall is in a book called Eriophyideae. Just cutting a microtome section through a mite so that it's along the middle of its back AND vertical must have been a challenge. IIRC, the animal has a relatively short digestive tract. It has no respiratory system-that's done through the 'skin'. To opuntiamc's original questions: I know several people who have been devoted insecticide and miticide sprayers. They have continued to have RRD infections. They have made major efforts to remove infected 'wild' roses in the fields around them. Remember we call spider mites and eriophyid mites ....we call them both mites. But there are so many physical differences ...size, predators vs. objects of predation, number and location and articulation of legs, response to us and movement, etc. Even within eriophyids, there are some major differences. The mites that include the RRV vector potential live very differnt lives from the mites that make the galls on oak leaves...even on poison ivy leaves. poison ivy leaf galls What has recently interested me is that the leaves with galls are not widespread on a plant but only on a few and I wonder what we can learn/infer/guess is happening. The one part of the country that hasn't had RRD as much as it 'should' have is the area in the Delta where there was a major spraying program against boll wevils. That eradication program has stopped, so time will tell If it has a positive effect. The -cides have one big negative: their targets develop tolerance and the -cides stop working. Air flow modification does work if you have the room; removing one sick cane earliest...can work some of the time and some of the time beats none of the time, and maybe some of the very small predaceous thrips and mites will continue their hunger for the eriophyids. Ann

The whole issue is potentially really quite terrible. Weeks brought "research material" into their production fields and propagated it beside roses they made for sale to the public. Some of that material was infected with RRD. That was four, perhaps longer, years ago. It can take several years for RRD to manifest itself. In the several years since the initial infection, bud wood, cuttings and bare root plants have been distributed to virtually every commercial rose source in the US as well as abroad. That means, worst case scenario, there are RRD time bombs at every production source of roses in this and perhaps many other countries. By now, who knows how many Weeks roses (and other varieties they propagated) may have been exposed? Perhaps none. Perhaps... Yes, if no one buys, the industry and its members suffer and perhaps fail. How much of a gambler are YOU? If I had a yard full of roses I could easily replace and if RRD existed outside my fences, I may feel differently. I don't and it doesn't.

Update on the talk: "I have been introduced to RRD, and shown a plant with the disease, but for some reason I did not take it too seriously; it was bad, but controllable I thought. Needles to say, I was shocked with the information from Dr. Windham. If I am not mistaken, someone has lost 4000 rose plants. Now that was a lot of plants----so, what can we do?" ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. "Dr. Windham told us what he does when he has acquire new rose plants. He plants them in containers and place them in a separate area, far from his other roses. After a year or two, if the roses are still healthy and he likes them, then he gives them their permanent places with the other roses. " https://garden.org/thread/view/79234/Rose-lovers-danger-for-your-roses--be-vigilant-for-RRD-RRV/