Following the 2008 Farm Bill, many SCRI project proposals that would have addressed serious horticulture industry issues went unfunded due to a flawed review process. However, the new legislative language, supported by AmericanHort, has driven more industry participation and greater emphasis on industry relevance. On the RRD project, a strong team of scientists collaborated with industry to develop a solid proposal, and the new review process puts greater emphasis on industry needs. So the project has been funded.

“Garden roses, which form the cornerstone of the multi-billion dollar landscape industry, annually generate wholesale U.S. domestic bare root and container production valued at about $400 million,” said Dr. Dave Byrne, Texas A&M AgriLife Research horticulturist and lead scientist of the project, said. “There is an urgent need to control rose rosette disease.”

The disease is caused by the rose rosette virus, which is transmitted by the mite Phyllocoptes fructiphilus. Unlike other rose diseases, the virus can kill a rose within two-to-three years of infection, according to Byrne.

The scientific counterattack will include working with private rose breeders to identify and develop rose rosette disease- resistant breeding germplasm and molecular markers to facilitate the rapid introgression of resistance into commercial roses, developing diagnostic tools, creating a monitoring network to track the disease, developing best management practices to manage the disease, and conducting consumer and grower producer surveys to identify the preferred rose traits and the marketing or economic barriers to their adoption.

Byrne said the framework for the plan started with the industry-sponsored Rose Rosette Summit in April 2013, which brought together all sectors of the rose industry, regulatory agencies, and scientists from throughout the country to discuss the problem. This framework evolved during subsequent discussions with the industry into the research proposal funded. As a result, AmericanHort established a Rose Rosette Disease website, which will be an outlet for the national study and action plan.

Byrne’s seventeen-member national team will include experts in the area of Best Management Practices, diagnostics, plant breeding and genetics, molecular genetics, plant pathology, entomology, Extension, and marketing and economics. This team, working with substantial industry support, will also collaborate with rose breeders in California, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, and experts at the Plant Research Institute in The Netherlands.