We had a pretty serious midge problem the previous two years here in the cutting fields, but this year we went totally organic and I've seen very little midge. I don't know if there's something we have that actually kills the little buggers or what that we'd been killing off and now they've come back, but it's been great not seeing those burned tips so often! We change a few months back from organic sprays to only using Actively Aerated Compost Tea, and roses we've not been able to get for cut in a couple years suddenly started producing good roses (Elina/Peaudouce, Geoff Hamilton, and others), plus it seems to have eliminated botrytis on our white roses. Powdery Mildew (our worst summer disease here) has been eliminated on the vast majority of roses, and has been losing hold on the roses that did have it, it's actually been curative in some cases (where foliage that had PM cleaned up). In reading that book "Teaming with Microbes" it said that the AACT using fungally based compost can actually kill nematodes because the good fungus in the soil around the roots will strangle the nematodes (they had an actual photo of that occurring). We don't have the bad nematodes that I've ever seen, but I'm wondering if maybe that same fungus kills the midge larvae, or something like it does. All these good fungus and bacteria are eliminated by chemical sprays, particularly the good ones right at the roots. They are also killed by strong chemical fertilizers. I don't really know for sure if this has been the cause for a much better rose year for us, but it does make sense, and it's a heckuva lot cheaper to do for us, even including the cost of the Compost Tea maker we bought. Plus, the crew doesn't fuss about spraying, and in fact are fairly enthusiastic about it (for our crew, LOL). Our rose production has increased about 44% over last year, some of this is due to newly planted roses getting big enough to cut, and stopping some excessive pruning practices in the past (we stopped that 2 years ago). --Ron

Rhizo-1, yes, I too love experiments. But granted these are not serious experiments, just fun things to do for people who enjoy the process. It's fun to play around with organics I feel! You might as well make things fun while waiting. I expected tons and tons of BS to overwinter since I didn't get blackspot until the rainy fall and I thought hmmm, since this is my second year of rose-growing in my garden I expected an onslaught because I didn't clean up my BS ridden leaves until March 1st 2010, and never was any sulfur applied to the soil either plus I have tons of rotting composting annuals in my soil. But so far everything looks great! I still FORGOT THE CORNMEAL! lol! We'll see, not an ounce of powdery mildew or BS yet. But just wait until I get the onslaught of fall rains, lol! AnnTN I definitely agree that true experiments involve very tight control groups. Everyone has different soils and different roses so this can tremendously impact the effectiveness of the experiments. The only "accurate" experiments I've ever tried was doing a test group of 6 transplanted baby lavenders. Each of those lavenders was placed in the exact same soil and were of identical sizes and came from the exact same organics grocery store. I fed 1/2 of those transplanted lavenders with B1 vitamin and the other 1/2 with Gardenville sea tea. I quickly concluded that B1 vitamin didn't do a whit for my baby lavender-they remained tiny for two weeks, whereas the sea tea fed lavender doubled in size. Hence I concluded that B1 vitamin was a bunch of bogus in terms of "helping with transplant shock" or being a plant nutrient. But again these organic experiments are just for fun and for curiosity's sake. Maureen, fantastic idea! A Foliage Award, I love it!. Let's add this foliage award for 2010...I expect to be the last-in-place, lol! Also the Foliage Award gives more motivation and gives visual "proof" of one's experiment. O.K. here is how I would describe my soil...heavy clumpy clay. My climate is hot in the summer 85-100 degrees in August, winters used to be mild with only 3 snow days, but not this year! Record-breaking snows and cold. Spring has been very reasonable in terms of rain, lots of clear skies so that is why I am guessing there is no blackspot or powdery mildew yet (last year my full-sun roses remained BS-free for Spring and Summer only because my roses are 1st year roses). Two of my newly planted roses receive shade, but there will be 4 total with shade. In the backyard there will be full sun for half of the day during summers, when fall comes they will be in partial shade because the direction of the sun will shift and the shade growing roses will actually increase in sunlight just a little bit. Next I will categorize the health of my vulnerable hybrid teas versus my resistant OGRs separately so that we don't confuse issues. Unfortunately the OGRs will experience their 1st year of growing so that there is no comparison between past performance and new performance. My goal is to remain BS free during the fall rains, FAT CHANCE, but at least I can entertain myself, hee-hee!

Is this thread being "wrapped up"? I agree that it has been very enlightening, but I have only just finished my third CD book, "Nicholas Nickleby", and I am about one third of the way into "The Old Curiosity Shop". What started with the proposal of this thread and the subsequent discussion looks to stretch indefinitely into my reading future. I want to thank everyone for sparking my interest - and I especially what to thank whoever it was who had the idea of general, individual readings of Dickens rather than concentrating on just one Dickens book. To supplement Ackroyd's Dickens bio, I also read Tomalin's. friedag, you are right that different biographers have different perspectives. Like carolyn_ky mentioned, it is obvious that Tomalin's big interest is "the affair" between CD and Ellen Ternan and thus Tomalin's biography is about half the length of Ackroyd's. Maybe that shows some of the differences between male and female biographers, because Ackroyd recounts the affair rather perfunctorily but includes much more detail of other aspects of CD's life. It could be, too, that Tomalin is more attuned to what interests female readers of biographies: relationships, factual and rumored. friedag, Charles Palliser's "The Quincunx" is said to be a Dickens pastiche. New Zealander Lloyd Jones wrote "Mister Pip" - the setting is Papua New Guinea and could be right up your alley! I have not read either of those, but I did read Gaynor Arnold's "Girl in a Blue Dress" and Richard Flanagan's "Wanting", both of which were inspired by CD's unhappy marriage to Catherine. All I can say about them is they are intriguing takes, but I found them quite maddening (angry-making, that is, not crazy-making).

This is an example of some very recent research from mainland China: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048357517305916 They report that a chemical can be used to activate the plant defense system against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). In the full paper they state the following: "Acknowledgment The work was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31160374), the Scientific and Technological Planning Project of Guizhou (No. QKH-JC [2017]1141), and initial funding of PhD (No. YBH-J [2016-7]). " H. Kuska comment: Please note that they are producing a new PhD with their funding. ------------------------------------------------------------- This is an example of how the University of Florida is planning on training a graduate student in the use of systemic acquired resistance to control rose rose virus. "The graduate student will study the use of systemic acquired resistance inducer in synergy with predatory mites to control the spread of the disease. The student will also investigate plant, vector, and virus interactions as well as the changes in rose physiology due to RRV infection and systemic acquired resistance inducer." https://www.entsoc.org/graduate-student-assistantship-0