Yes. But don't worry about it. It ain't catching, and the stigmata will disappear soon, as the weather warms up.

What zone are you in?

My Belle de Crecy has rose mosaic and it looks just like that. As jerijen said, it does tend to lessen later in the summer. Unfortunately, at least in my western KY climate, it is at its worst when the rose is in bloom. I was just thinking today that this might be its last season. I have had it for four years.

Over the years, as roses have come and gone, the number of virused roses here has dropped steadily.

Most of my "found" roses are, very likely, not virused -- but anything from the 20th Century on probably is. (Except, of course, for seedlings given me by hybridizers.) Some of them have been tested and showed "clean". Some of the Austins have demonstrated their virus for me, darnit. (You ought to see how awful 'The Dark Lady' can look.)

But some roses (and 'Belle de Crecy' may be one of them) may not exist as "clean" roses.

There are around 20 known viruses that infect roses. Since Belle de Crecy is so old (apparently pre 1836) it had plenty of time to pick up a virus (or more than one) infection. At present high-throughput sequencing (HTS) to determine how many and which viruses are causing the observed symptoms appears to be the "state of the art" method.

https://www.google.com/search?client=avast&q=Recent+Advances+on+Detection+and+Characterization+of+Fruit+Tree+Viruses+Using+High-Throughput+Sequencing+Technologies

The fact that the virus symptoms apparently do not completely disappear in warm (hot) weather is what makes me suspect more that one infection.

Until one knows what is causing the infection, one cannot say whether it will spread to your other roses.

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This recent paper is an example of what high through sequencing along with the more common tests can find:

http://rosebreeders.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=56276

Thanks for the input, everyone.

Henry, I am in zone 8A (NW GA).

Jeri, its very reassuring to know what you said.

Deborah, that surprised me that you're considering letting this be the last year for your BdC. Is it just the issue with mosaic, or there other reasons?

Thanks Paul, for chiming in.

Another good case in point is the lovely Polyantha-type study-named "Schmidt's Smooth Yellow" -- found by our own Jackie Schmidt.

It's a honey of a rose, with excellent disease-resistance, no thorns, and lovely blooms. There have never been any other discoveries of it. All that exists comes from Jackie's "harvest" of cuttings from a deserted house. It's thought to be one of the Polyanthas from the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th Century, so it was surely in commerce when virus came along.

And it IS virused. I've seen one very very small stigmata, on a plant in Sacramento. (I've never seen it on mine.) The rose is in no way hampered by it, and I think that's just another part of its history.

Cottage-Guy -- You can feel free to contact me privately with questions, if that's helpful.

Thanks again!

If it's not catching, how do roses get it?
Carla in Sac

"If it's not catching, how do roses get it?
Carla in Sac"

Hi Carla. Well, virus has been so thoroughly disseminated throughout the industry because for close to 70 years, the big players in the nursery industry grafted their roses onto infected understock - typically 'Dr. Huey' in this country. Any variety you graft onto virused understock then also becomes infected. What typically happens after that is that budwood is taken from infected plants and further propagated. There are very large production nurseries that bud every single plant they make onto infected understock, and still do to this very day! (These players just don't care. This is why you can buy "body bag" roses for five bucks or less at Home Depot, etc. You can be pretty sure that many/most of these plants are virused, even though they may not show symptoms)

What we ended up with was entire populations of some varieties that were sold into commerce as virused. There are many roses still in commerce today that cannot be had as "clean" specimens, and this is entirely due to bad propagation practices which the industry blindly embraced for decades. (As I say, some still do.)

Virus is so prevalent in the American population of roses that it is almost unavoidable. But you can rest assured that these viruses do not spread easily from plant to plant except by grafting, even though there are individuals in the community that will happily tell you that there are many vectors and that the threat of spread of virus is much more sinister and even inevitable. (I urge you to take such claims with a large grain of salt)

One thing I love about the old roses we've found in cemeteries is that many of them, when tested, are found to be virus-free . . . (Of course! They were planted in the "old times," when bad industry practices had not been widespread.)

State Universities often run agriculture extension programs to inform their citizens on various points concerning what is being discovered in agriculture basic research that could be of interest.

This is 2019 copyright article by the extension service of Utah State University.

"Hosts, Symptoms & Signs

• caused by a complex of several viruses
• roses are the host
• spread by aphids
• leaves show a yellow irregular zigzag pattern"

https://utahpests.usu.edu/ipm/ornamental-pest-guide/diseases/rose-mosaic

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This is a 2019 copyright article by a unit of Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California.

" In the meantime, you need to remember that viruses can be transmitted by pruning and cutting shears. Virus-infected plants should be pruned last and/or have their flowers harvested last. To be extra cautious, wipe your cutting shears with alcohol (rubbing alcohol is good) or a 10 percent bleach solution between plants."

http://ceventura.ucanr.edu/Gardening/Coastal/Landscape_578/Viruses_Menu/Rose_Virus/

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This an 2018 article by The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (the primary outreach and engagement organization for the land-grant mission of Alabama A&M University and Auburn University in cooperation with Tuskegee University).

" Most viruses may also be transmitted by insects (primarily aphids). Growers should remove infected plants from rose gardens to prevent the possible spread to healthy plants."

https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/flowers/growing-roses/

===================================================

This is what the University of California, Davis found in their collection of non cleaned roses.

Title: "SURVEY OF SIX ROSE VIRUSES IN A ROSE VIRUS
COLLECTION"

"Survey results - ApMV
Season Total #
samples*
Single Composite
Fall 2016 243 (31/92) 33.7% (24/151) 15.9%
Spring 2017 254 (40/103) 38.8% (23/151) 15.2%"

"Survey results - PNRSV
Season Total #
samples
Single Composite
Fall 2016 243 (45/92) 48.9% (44/151) 29.1%
Spring 2017 254 (63/103) 61.1% (47/151) 31.1%"

"Survey results - RSDaV
Season Total #
samples
Single Composite
Fall 2016 243 (27/92) 29.3% (36/151) 23.8%
Spring 2017 254 (40/103) 38.8% (52/151) 34.4%"

H. Kuska comment: RSDaV is rose spring dwarf virus - an aphid spread virus.

"Additional results
• Two samples were positive for RYVV
• One positive for BCRV for one testing period
• No RRV was found"

https://ucanr.edu/sites/ncpnrose/files/285803.pdf

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At the 2018 National Clean Plant Roses meeting Keven Org reported that he tested 150 plants from

the Florida Southern OGR collection. Rose Spring Dwarf (RsDAV) was found in

21 plants. Blackberry chlorotic ringspot virus (BcRV) was found in one plant,

Prunus necrotic ringspot virus (PNRSV) was found in 6 plants, and Rose yellow

vein virus (RYVV) was found in six plants. Four plants had mixed viruses -

two had RsDAV and RYVV (Paul Neyron and Pulich Children) and two had

PNRSV and RsDAV (B. rugosa ruba and Red Pinocchio).

https://ucanr.edu/sites/ncpnrose/files/292256.pptx

==================================================

These are my summaries of the properties and characteristics of the viruses that infect roses.

https://sites.google.com/site/rosevirusindexpage/

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Cottagegardenguy and Carla, I might be overestimating by a few percentage points, but I'm guessing that, at this moment in time and commerce, around 95% of US roses are carrying some kind of mosaic-type virus due to all the circumstances mentioned by Paul and Jeri. Most of my 70 roses don't show signs of being virused, some show signs rarely and a couple are quite "variegated." I'd guess that common rootstock rose, Dr. Huey, is 100% virused. With that said, it's worth mentioning that a huge percentage of the human population is virused, too, in one way or another. I doubt I could count the number of us walking around with warts/HPV or the varicella zoster virus due to contracting chickenpox prior to the vaccine. Yet we and our roses carry on and make the world a more beautiful place because we're here. :-) Carol

So basically having a rose with virus is nothing to worry about?
Carla in Sac

"So basically having a rose with virus is nothing to worry about?"

There is no simple answer to that question, in part because every individual gardener has to decide for themselves whether or not they will tolerate virused plants in their garden. I have probably close to 2000 unique varieties in my archive, and many of the older roses probably have at least one virus. For me, the bottom line is: does the variety grow well and meet my minimum requirements for performance? I won't banish a plant just because it has virus, because if I did, I would have to remove scores of historically important roses.

Carla, like Paul said, it's an individual choice, but where rose mosaic is concerned, I only remove a plant if the virus has severely weakened it for some reason (this can happen with some less robust cultivars and some older plants) or the "variegation" is bothering my sense of aesthetic satisfaction. I have a Mr. Lincoln grafted on Huey that came with my house. It's decades old, virused and growing and blooming just fine. David Austin sent me a Munstead Wood a couple of years ago, and it is also noticeably infected (thanks DA), but overall, I enjoy my Munstead and plan to keep it since I no longer order roses from areas with Rose Rosette Disease. RRD is a whole nuther animal! Carol

Paul Barden and Portland Mystery Rose speak for me.

There are things I worry about in life -- my dog with glaucoma . . . nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable dictators . . . the spreading threat of Measles in the U.S. . . . the advent of Rose Rosette Disease to California . . . threats to historic rose gardens I love . . .

Rose Mosaic virus just isn't up there anywhere in the panoply of things I worry about.

YMMV, of course. But, really . . . life's too short.

Enjoy your roses.

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all thing shall be well"

--- Dame Julian of Norwich, English anchorite and mystic, 1390's