GardenBanter.co.uk - Mosaic virus

Ray asked:
I was wondering if anyone can tell me what sort of pests/insects carry
the mosaic virus that roses get. I understand that its a virus and is
transported through propagation but im doing an assignment on it for
tafe and have been told to find out which insect vector is a carrier.
I know that aphids are one but is there anymore???

Rose Mosaic Virus can ONLY be transmitted by budding and grafting. It
cannot be transmitted by any insect. Any information that you have
heard in that regard is mistaken.

RMV won't kill your rose, and in some cases, you will hardly notice
anything other than a few leaves with the typical "mosaic" yellow
pattern. In more severe cases, the plant will not be as vigorous as
it would be otherwise and the mosaic pattern will be on a large
portion of the leaves.

In the last few years, you are finally able to purchase roses that are
"Virus Indexed" or certified to be free of Rose Mosaic Virus (RMV).
Still, at this point these roses are few and far between.

Attacking the RMV problem is long overdue in the industry. The
reason that many roses suffer from RMV is that certain large growers
are budding their roses on virused root stocks of the "Dr. Huey"
variety. Since Dr. Huey is a hybrid variety, it must be vegetatively
propagated. They could attack the problem head on, but frankly, many
major growers just don't give a damn.

Roses, especially new modern hybrids grown on the root stock Rosa
multiflora are usually virus free because the root stock is produced
from seed.

One of the notorious RMV rose growers is Certified Roses. They are
one of the biggest if not THE biggest supplier of bagged bare root
roses for the budget market (i.e. the Home Depots, WalMarts and Lowes
of the world). If you want to avoid RMV, I would NEVER buy this type
of rose.

Have a good one,

Bob Bauer
http://www.rose-roses.com/