Grafting Swamp roses to Multiflora root stock to combat Rose Rosette

So, we have rose rosette disease bad!!! I've read all sorts of things to try and am aware they are out there. I was going to try some of these things, so in phase one I only cut the roses I could get to down to about 2 feet from the ground (they were massive). But I have hundreds of bushes and the disease is rampant out here. Even if it did work, it would be a tremendous amount of time and money to keep this disease at bay every year. My neighbors also have it, so it would continue to move back in.

The reason I have roses is the hips and petals are my primary income. The majority of our roses are multiflora, but they are dying off en masse and we spent a good bit of the winter and are still cutting out the dead so we can grow black berries or a different type of rose. And some people think the massive amount of time an herbalist/ farmer spends tending the plants isn't worth an income and that it's unethical to sale herbs.

I also have swamp roses. The hips and petals are bigger and they are so far resistant to the disease. I don't have many of the bushes but they are large enough they were the primary hip harvested last fall and could possibly get us through till next harvest. The swamp roses also aren't so "viney", are a smaller bush and sort of stays in place.

I'm wondering if instead of now starting the dig up the root and burn phase, I could graft swamp rose shoots to the multiflora root stock? Would the mite be able to contaminate the graft of a previously immune plant? Would having the root stock alive and possibly contaminated be able to later harm other types of roses to come that I don't grow yet?

Multiplying the roses this way wouldn't just help us, but the massive bee population we support here being sandwiched between two bee keepers.

Hi, Jamie...I was hoping someone knew an answer for you. Do you have pictures of what the disease looks like? and it is spread by a mite? That is tough luck if that is your mainstay crop. This post will at least bump your post up.

I think I've decided this is a bad idea. The root stock will continue to send up Multiflora. So I think in their space, I will just put Swamp rose cuttings to root.

RRD is a virus and it is systemic, it is in the whole plant. That's interesting about the swamp roses being resistant. Do you know of other roses that are?

No, I'm not sure. I do have a white JFK rose (commercial) that hasn't gotten it yet. Mainly I just have multiflora and swamp.

Akiva Silver wrote:RRD is a virus and it is systemic, it is in the whole plant. That's interesting about the swamp roses being resistant. Do you know of other roses that are?

i believe rugosa roses are immune to this, and one of the easiest hardiest roses one can get.
they also produce these epically fat juicy hips =)

got curious enough to google about this, to see if that is correct about rugosa. found this link

http://www.mdinvasivesp.org/archived_invaders/archived_invaders_2011_07.html

Many popular varieties have been noted exhibiting symptoms of the disease with apparent susceptibility ranging from very susceptible (plants die in one to two seasons) through resistant (plants exhibit symptoms but live for several years) to apparently immune. In field trials conducted by MDA, ‘Flower Carpet” varieties have proven to be very susceptible, Meidland cultivars, including ‘Alba’ are moderately susceptible and the native species of roses; Rosa setigera, R. virginiana, and R. palustris (this is swamp rose correct?) and the naturalized R. rugosa seem to be very resistant to possibly immune to the disease.

Yes the one that is doing well is the palustris. It is completely surrounded by infected multiflora with zero affect. Nice big hips too.

well i dont know if you are interested, but i have a lot of rose seeds for trade. i have a large rosa rugosa alba, with lovely large white flowers and HUGE hips, like the size of a tomato =)
and gathered a lot of seed over the winter.
i also have seeds of the classic form with bright pink flowers.

i have a bunch of other rose seeds too, but maybe you wouldnt want to introduce stuff that would be susceptible. like big fancy roses, florabunda types, other kinds, bi colored ones and lots of white and yellow roses. i have a bag of multiple varieties that i got all mixed up.

i have some wild rose seeds, but i try and try and cant id them positively. all those wild roses look so much alike to me with the simple flat flowers, so it is something like the virginia rose or ones i harvested from a large hedgerow on the coast.

out here we dont have this, not that i have seen yet, but we do get these weird galls on the wild ones.

our small community garden project in town has an emphasis on roses, so theres like twenty or more growing there =)
and i am a little involved, so i gathered a lot of seeds there last year.

of all of them i think the simple rugosa is my favorite, so i have been spreading them around and planting them everywhere.

anywho let me know if you would be interested.
you could send me a SASE, or rather just postage if you prefer.