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mkrkmr

rrd :(

mkrkmr
13 years ago

I'm thinking I've got RRD. Whaa. Last year one plant had witches broom in two spots. I had been using roundup to control some pernicious vines under it from time to time, and read that could cause it. But now there's witches broom on all the plants in the group. No excessive thorns, or extra long canes. I figure that it must be RRD for it to spread. Wisht I'd got rid of it last year.

I don't know what rose it is. It was ancient when we moved in nine years ago. There's a link below I posted a while back, but no one identified it. In the spring flush, the clusters have 50-100 roses. I tried to estimate once how many at full flush and came up with about 50,000 roses -- I can't tell you how accurate I am, though. The group is about 15 feet across. Too bad I can't wait until they bloom, but as I understand it, I need to take them out now.

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Unknown white rose

Comments (12)

  • buford
    13 years ago

    Can you post a picture of the witches broom? Sometimes RRD and RU damage can be confused. And while RU damage doesn't 'spread' it can take time for it to appear on all parts of a plant. Before you take out that lovely rose, make sure.

  • hartwood
    13 years ago

    Pictures, please, before you go ripping out roses with what could be herbicide damage. They do look similar. If you've been using Round up underneath this group of roses, that's going to be my first diagnosis ... speaking as someone who has done the same thing and ended up with weird growth on my roses.

    When did you last spray the Round-up?

    I'll have to go check the prickles on mine to compare, but I think your rose looks a lot like Alba Meideland.

    You are welcome to contact me off board if I can help.

    Connie

  • mkrkmr
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Thanks, guys. I cut them down in a panic. :( They're right next to most of the new roses I've planted. I haven't dug them up, so they should come back, if I let them. My wife doesn't like them, so I got encouraged. I'm just a little busy right now, so the stress probably contributed to my rashness.

    I never spray Roundup. I paint it on with a small brush. I painted it on some vines and some pokeweed. I probably applied it last August or September. I apply to the things I don't pull up in time, about once a year, maybe twice.

    Oh, well, what's done is done. I thought I had pictures of the witches broom, but I can't find them. I'll see if I can take pictures of what I've cut

    Mike

  • mkrkmr
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Also, it does look like Alba Meideland. But the canes are 6' - 12', usually 10' or so. From the pictures of Alba Meideland I can find online, mine look a little smaller. Thanks.

  • henry_kuska
    13 years ago

    Roundup can leave the plant through the roots, pass through the soil, and be picked up by the roots of another plant.

  • mkrkmr
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    I finally had some time to deal with the pictures I took a day after I cut the roses down. Here is a link to an album of them. I had to dig through the thorny pile and couldn't find all the variety of things I saw. (The pile is covered with a plastic tarp. I don't have the facilities for burning it. I thought I'd let set there all summer.)
    {{gwi:242241}}11 Unknown White RRD

    Note: The last two pictures are of a strange growth at the nodes that has been on the plants since we moved in. It seems to appear on canes that are two year old or older.

    Thanks for your help.

    Mike

  • melissa_thefarm
    13 years ago

    I can't offer any useful information, Mike, but good luck.

  • buford
    13 years ago

    Well that does not look like RU damage. You probably did the right thing in cutting down the rose.

  • anntn6b
    13 years ago

    I've seen Alba Med. with RRD in two different states, WV, and NC. The excessive breaks at the internodes were in both states. It may have been times of the year, but reddish growth wasn't common on any of them. OTOH, the leaves were really messed up physiologically.

  • mkrkmr
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Here is some strange growth on Alba semi-plena, which is next to the other rose but not very close to where the RU was applied. (I know, roots can grow a long way.) It is a new rose; this will be its third year. I will take out this cane today down to the base, and hope the RRD is confined to this segment.
    {{gwi:242242}}From 11 Unknown White RRD

    What I notice is that the bud underneath away from the sun is growing, which has not happened anywhere else on this plant. That's what happens on the other rose, too: Every leaf/branch bud activates.

    I don't think think I've got Alba Med. Mine is a huge, brutal, rambling climber. It tip roots easily. Every year it has babies. When we moved in, they had been fighting it with a lawnmower, but it was winning a war of attrition. What I meant to write earlier is that the individual flowers look smaller than those in the pictures of A.M. on HMF. Of course it's hard to tell from a pic. New growth on mine always starts with a reddish tinge. Last year I noticed a cane with very red, very dense vegetation coming out of the leaf/branch buds. It didn't look like the RRD pictures I saw and there were no other RRD symptoms, and RU was a possibility. The cane was shooting straight across the driveway, so it was doomed anyway and I pruned it. Later in the year, from roughly the same spot, an amazingly red and dense cluster of flower buds had grown (we had been away). It aborted and turned brown.

    Thank you very much, everyone, for your feedback.

  • anntn6b
    13 years ago

    Yours isn't Alba Med. if the new growth has reddish tints (I do grow Alba Med.) There were a lot of very large ramblers introduced at the beginning of the last century. Tip rooting easily implies wichurana in its parentage, big ramblers also imply wichurana and some multiflora.

    When you look at 'strange growth', look at the leaf margins and symmetry. RRD will often make the margins of infected leaves look different from uninfected leaves. Symmetry also goes to heck with all sorts of odd little leaflets emerging from the sides of the rachis (on big heathy plants- that have RRD but haven't lost any of their vigor) and even individual leaflets will be asymmetric.

    When you see a dense red growth that appears to have happened overnight, look to see how 'rubbery' is it and for how far. On HTs in my garden, new cane growth hardens within six inches; on infected HTs, you can have eighteen inches that are rubbery- it grows that much faster than other uninfected new canes.

    On semi-plena, I agree with your reasoning. When in doubt, let the other canes on a bush tell you what's normal. And what isn't.

  • mkrkmr
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I found a tag that says Alba Meidiland where these roses were growing. Still, the new growth has always had red margins, and the tops of the canes turn red in winter.