On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:05:49 GMT, "Allegra"
wrote:

Will the bacteria travel through the ground? Should the rose be removed
to
prevent the spread of disese to the other roses? I assumed it was pretty
location specific, but I could be wrong. (Certainly won't be the first
or
last time!) If it won't spread I'm going to leave it. Let it decline and
then
start working on removal.

This has been a matter of discussion and/or dissent ever
since I started growing roses. There are those who swear
that it does, and others who swear that it doesn't.
That the transmission is only effected by manual vectoring.
I have a tendency to believe that it stays within a radius of
10 feet from the affected rose. Nothing scientific here, but
I dealt with a bad case years ago where a gorgeous Anna
de Diesbach got it badly. She sat rather regally in the middle
of that bed, and only the closest to her ended showing symptoms.
Both ends of the bed were clean, never a problem, nothing shown.

I discussed this very issue with the main gardener at Edmunds Roses.
He claims that the bacteria is ever-present in many soils but that
most of the time, it isn't activated or doesn't get the chance to
infect the plant. So, he's not all that sure that sterilization or
even quarantine does a lot of good. So, there might not be a lot of
worry about spreading, since, if you get it in the first place, it's
probbly everywhere in your soil anyway. Just be careful about nicking
the other plants at crown level, since that's the main event of
opporunity that allows gall to start.

He also said that he keeps some 40 galled roses out of the 800 that he
grows as evidence that it doesn't have to be an immediate killer. He
says that some of them are quite impressive. He also realizes that it
will probably eventually weaken the plant, but some of them have been
around for over 10 years with gall.

Just thought I'd share this anecdotal info.