Does anyone know Kudzu? Just one glaring example to start. If you don't remember its origins it was promoted as an erosion control agent by....

For a refresher or new knowledge, see:
http://www.biology.duke.edu/bio217/2005/cjc6/Kudzu.html

I just read this article published by the University of West Virginia in 2000. See link below. It documents how Rose Rosette Disease was studied in the wild and how it was a hoped for natural remedy, or as the title says a "biological control agent" for multiflora roses.

How do we get the *&^!@#@! people who think this way out of positions of influence and power in our curricula, extension agencies, government, etc.?

The kudzu link is below.

Chemicals (Bayer, etc.) undergo rigid scrutiny and exhaustive testing before they're ever brought to market. Even then, you've got the constant detractors and mistrusting folk who firmly "know" that they still must be unsafe.

Someone comes up with a "biological" idea, everyone jumps on it, it gets implemented (with little or no control), and we pay for the consequences for decades or longer.

Jeri

Meanwhile, I once planted morning glory by my mailbox post. in the NE it's a nice mannerly plant. In Georgia...well let's just say my neighbor asked me why I planted Kudzu.

We have zone in our yard where the former owner used to drown trees with it. 50 years later things are starting to grow.

But here in Coastal SoCal, the big difference is back in the early 70's it was worth pulling to the side of the hwy to watch a pelican go by, there were only a few left. Same thing for dolphins, it was a treat to see one. Decades later, we can walk the beach and watch the flocks of pelicans and the dolphins pass by just off shore.

Does make you wonder about bees. Especially, when you see them fall from the air dead.

To point out just a few:
A quote attributed to Dr. Zary recommending that hybridizers only work with resistant species, the cited release of the vectoring mites by two states, and the list of roses already documented to be vulnerable.

Similarly, there have been reports here about Knockouts contracting the virus. And like Peace I believe many hybridizers are trying to introduce the Knockout genes to their breeding lines.

It takes no time at all for the stuff to cover every plant in a garden with an undulating blanket of its undeniably lovely leaves and flowers. It will kill everything in its path, given time.

It isn't Kudzu, but . . . it does quite a good imitation.

Jeri

Sorry I tend to veer off topic..

There are mistakes and then there are atrocities. The link below should help clarify my point about this kind of thinking. This kind of thinking is not from minds which make understandable mistakes or environmentalists attempting to be good stewards.

The bell flower takes over and it is trying, always, to come back in all my beds, which i dug it out of. It's in my yard-(-it becomes a turf plant- it's taking over golf courses who rarely shy from chemicals)
I finally relented and had a lawn chemical Company (senske) try to kill it with their broadleaf sprays one spring, summer and fall. The next year they sprayed it 3 times with glyphosate (round up) in some very strong formulation. Nothing grows there now but reepong BF because It's come back only a year later. Hand digging out the tuberous roots and sifting the dirt for roots is the Only control i've found works. I believe It's become immune to the chemicals from overuse.
Overuse of chemicals is as beneficial ultimately as overuse of antibiotics- you'll end up with worse problems at some point down the road ...and herbicides are toxic. Often chemicals are crutches used to avoid better garden habits like hand weeding.
As for malaria- it's drug resistant now and the mosquitos quickly develop resistance to insecticides in recent studies of insecticide impregnated nets (they came back stronger) so it's unlikely DDT would have ever wiped iout mosquitos- theyre everywhere- if it wasnt banned because it was killing other things more.

...I hate to see my neighbor grab his big costco sprayer of biretherine (sp?) to kill a spider he could easily step on - while he chats with my family- including our young child. He has no concern of it at all. Like it's water??
P The kudzu mistake is unique in that they wanted it to thrive and take over. Luckily, due to better science and education- we are aware and alert to invasive species moreso than ever before.

Chemicals can be avoided or banned.

Living things like the kudzu, the creeping bellflower, etc. keep reproducing.

And viruses, like H1N1 for example - no, sorry - I meant like the Rose Rosette Disease virus, don't have regional boundaries/limits like morning glory or kudzu.

The chart of RRD susceptible roses in the link below (previously given) also lists the states where the disease was observed. It didn't look like any part of the continental US was safe.

"Risk of Infection
in Ornamental Rose Cultivars
The risk of RRD infection of ornamental
roses as a result of augmentation is low.
Disease gradients from local sources were
very steep, with no spread beyond 100 m
(Fig. 15). Symptoms did not occur in rose
plants in plots located 150 to 300 m from
the inoculum source during the first 3 years
after augmentation (18). Four to 5 years
after augmentation, no symptoms were
observed on ornamental rose plants planted
at 20-m intervals from the inoculum
source. This was coincident with a decline
in vector populations on symptomatic
plants 4 to 5 years after augmentation.
Rates of RRD infection are very low in
nonaugmented pastures. The RRD infection
rates range from 5 to 10 times lower
than infection rates characteristic of plant
viruses in agricultural crops. In augmented
pastures, RRD infection rates are approximately
five times lower than rates characteristic
of plant viruses (18,27). Since RRD
is endemic in Iowa, local augmentation increases
the rate of RRD spread locally
(within 100 m) but does not increase the
risk of long-distance spread (18). In addition,
because the natural rate of infection is
low, the removal of local sources of inoculum
(i.e., roguing RRD-infected plants),
when they occur within ornamental plantings,
effectively prevents RRD epidemics
in these plantings (17). Surveys conducted
over a 5-year period (1992 to 1997) revealed
that the annual natural RRD infection
rate in ornamental rose plantings was
approximately one infection per 1,200
plants. Prompt removal of these initially
infected plants should prevent secondary
buildup of mites and subsequent increase
of RRD infections (A. H. Epstein, unpublished
data)."

For goodness sake, what does flu have to do with Rose Rosette Disease?

The reason for the scientific concern about the bird flu virus is that the rate at which viruses mutate (evolve/adapt) is reasonably fast. (Annual Flu shot)

Although the information in the link below on the discovery/isolation of the virus at the Universtiy of Arkansas is presented as good news (and it is), the discoverer is quoted as saying that if the mites are present the disease "spreads like wildfire" particularly as we know among multiflora.

The mites can't be seen with my very good reading glasses - no, they require a microscope to be seen.

The economic impact of this truly makes it atrocious. What will the diagnostic testing cost? Will diagnostic testing be available over the counter for gardeners? How much will that cost?

What will it cost the already shrinking industry?

This should never have been allowed/encouraged to spread. And I worry that we haven't learned the proper lessons and don't have the proper controls in place to prevent similar events in the future. (not to mention: what's really being done now to stop/control this?)

Kate

Preparedness is like that ounce of prevention, but not half as good. But since there seems to be no prevention, per se, I've been thinking about being prepared.

The report is that the mites that carry the Rose Rosette Disease are microscopic - we can't see them. We can only see the resulting infection they inflict.

If (or lord help me when) I see RRD, my first action (weather cooperating, of course) will be to spray the tender growth on EVERY rose I have with insecticidal soap. Or maybe I should say I would do that concurrently with the removal of the infected stock. The roses and I will survive the possible leaf burn a lot easier than RRD. I don't think insecticidal soap discriminates based on visibility!

I want to share this because if you've already got it or had it, then the mites that brought it might still be around. I'd eliminate that possibility to the best of my ability!

I checked on that.

Eight (8) ounces for $110. plus shipping and possibly tax.

OR a quart for $229. plus shipping, tax, etc.

So an ounce of prevention costs how much?

There is and always will be a frightening amount of arrogance and hubris in the world, causing people to do things we find later on to be amazingly stupid. A lot of it is caused by sheer laziness, sad to say. And it leaves our descendents picking up the pieces...

I still don't understand why Mary Shelley is in the title!

I have a friend who is a 'sprayer' and who has been using Avid for at least seven years. She still looses roses to RRD every year.

Avid may kill some of the mites that vector RRD, but hasn't been proven in tests to do so. It's suggested to be a usable miticide because it is one of the few miticides approved to kill Eriophyid mites. There are thousands upon thousands of species within the grouping of "Eriophyid mites". Some miticides will kill one species in a genus, but not others (Check out the huge book of Eriophyidae through interlibrary loan for specifics.)

The problem is (and remains), the disease can be vectored by a single mite and even if that single mite is killed by feeding on a rose, the disease may have already been spread.

Accession time for a similar disease of peaches, also spread by eriophyid mite is fifteen minutes of feeding.

Remember that, that IS important.

The complete quote: "They were originally introduced to southern US states more than three decades ago to control algal build-up in sewage treatment plants."

I get the Shelly reference. Dr. Frankenstein thought he was doing a good thing. But it turned into a disaster.

I've been thinking of this in relation to our modern diet. In our quest to have cheap food (so people don't starve, a good thing!) we have basically bred all the nutrition out of our food. It's calorie dense and nutritionally deficient. So we have a bunch of obese people who are, for lack of a better word, suffering from malnutrition. And what will it cost us in healthcare for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc.

And I do think rosetom's point that people attribute only bad to chemical or manufactured products and only good to 'natural' ones. There are plenty of 'bad' natural things. The scientists that found the RRD virus thought it was great because it was 'natural'.

Was it likely spread by the use of multiflora as fences and such?

Sure. But being mad about that would make as much sense as being mad 20 years from now if we discover that something we can't currently detect that is found on say Knock Outs, causes all other roses to die.

Multiflora as a fence was a conservation idea and it works quite well if the person who uses it is willing to maintane it. Have there been things introduced that back fired? Sure. But the list of invasive and devasting ecosystem criters that have come here on their own is a far longer list:
Japanese Beetles
Fire Ants
Raspberry Ants
Africanized Bees
Cactus Moths
Asian Citrus Psylid
Mistle toe
Water Hyacinth
Snake Heads
Armored Catfish
Formosen Termites
etc etc etc.

Do Chemicals have a place? Yes.
Should they be used exclusively or all the time-probably not but that is your decision.

The above linked article was an uninformed paper from 2000 and I haven't been able to find any evidence that people ever used RRV as a control method. He was writing as it showed promise as a possible control method.

In case you don't realize how this works currently, they test it extensively in controlled situations prior to using it as a commercial control. They have been testing a parasitic wasp to control fire ants for over a decade and still haven't released them.

"The Africanized honey bees in the Western Hemisphere are of mixed descent from 26 Tanganyikan queen bees of A. m. scutellata, accidentally released by a replacement bee-keeper in 1957 near Rio Claro, São Paulo, in the southeast of Brazil, from hives operated by biologist Warwick E. Kerr, who had interbred honey bees from Europe and southern Africa."

They didn't get here on their own.