Nope, we're not talking many, many viruses causing mosaic. Just as we're not talking distemper nor the common cold nor any of a host of other viruses when we discuss HIV in humans. Any discussion of those other viruses on this thread is irrelevant. The simple fact is that the "problem" of mosaic in the USA is caused almost always by a strain of PNRSV, and occasionally by ApMV. We're done now. There are no other viruses that cause "rose mosaic." That there are many other viruses that can attack roses, or that have been found in a rose (notice that this big list from HK was found for the first time, ever) -- that does NOT constitute the "problem" of "virus" in roses! And even if it did, it would be a different problem from "rose mosaic," and irrelevant to this thread's discussion. The same is true about using buds to get clean roses. That it might work, occasionally, is utterly irrelevant to the current discussion. The writer is simply hijacking this thread to confuse the readers. There are numerous methods that can be used to remove rose mosaic (the actual disease by that name, caused by PNRSV or ApMV and the only one at all likely to be bought by you at a nursery or ever seen in your garden.) Heat therapy happens to be the easiest, quickest, and cheapest, and has proven to be exceedingly efficient and effective. That's why we use it. Again I would point out that all references above that seem to indicate that it does not work or that "virus" "comes back," are misinterpretations, talking about the wrong virus, talking about a crop other than roses, are direct misquotations or misrepresentations, or for some other reason are not relevant and truthful to the conversation at hand -- specifically and uniquely the management of rose mosaic disease in American grown roses. I would recommend that readers very carefully read the links provided above -- in every case, without exception, if you read carefully enough you'll realize that they do not demonstrate what the thread hijacker says they demonstrate. I don't know what bizarre need the writer has to confuse and destroy all such discussions, but there it is -- that's exactly what's happening here. It always seems odd that someone who has done precisely no work with this disease, ever, and who obviously doesn't understand any aspect of this disease, is constantly telling Davis (and me) what's wrong with us and what we ought to be doing. Yet that writer is without the first hint of a clue. Why are such attacks on this and other forums always occurring? It makes no sense. Yet we continue to produce mosaic-free roses and make them available, and so the availability of mosaic-free roses in this country has improved dramatically over the last 30 years, despite the insults and ignorance. In an industry as large and diverse as the American rose nursery industry, undoubtedly someone, somewhere, at some point, accidentally shipped or sold an infected rose and indicated it was "VI" (a term we never use), and so the rumors begin. But despite such rumors and despite all of the statements on this thread so far, rose mosaic disease has never been demonstrated to have come back in a heat-treated rose, and the common methods of indexing really do work. Notice that no one other than the argumentative poster here claims otherwise. That's important -- NO ONE ON THIS EARTH who understands and works with these diseases -- agrees with the poster above.

Since several have brought up the subject of Ebola Virus, the following may be of interest. Around 1990 scientists started realizing that plants utilized the production of RNAi (RNA interference) to fight plant viruses. "The discovery of RNAi was preceded first by observations of transcriptional inhibition by antisense RNA expressed in transgenic plants,[145] and more directly by reports of unexpected outcomes in experiments performed by plant scientists in the United States and the Netherlands in the early 1990s.[146] In an attempt to alter flower colors in petunias, researchers introduced additional copies of a gene encoding chalcone synthase, a key enzyme for flower pigmentation into petunia plants of normally pink or violet flower color. The overexpressed gene was expected to result in darker flowers, but instead produced less pigmented, fully or partially white flowers, indicating that the activity of chalcone synthase had been substantially decreased; in fact, both the endogenous genes and the transgenes were downregulated in the white flowers. Soon after, a related event termed quelling was noted in the fungus Neurospora crassa,[147] although it was not immediately recognized as related. Further investigation of the phenomenon in plants indicated that the downregulation was due to post-transcriptional inhibition of gene expression via an increased rate of mRNA degradation.[148] This phenomenon was called co-suppression of gene expression, but the molecular mechanism remained unknown.[149] Not long after, plant virologists working on improving plant resistance to viral diseases observed a similar unexpected phenomenon. While it was known that plants expressing virus-specific proteins showed enhanced tolerance or resistance to viral infection, it was not expected that plants carrying only short, non-coding regions of viral RNA sequences would show similar levels of protection. Researchers believed that viral RNA produced by transgenes could also inhibit viral replication.[150] The reverse experiment, in which short sequences of plant genes were introduced into viruses, showed that the targeted gene was suppressed in an infected plant. This phenomenon was labeled "virus-induced gene silencing" (VIGS), and the set of such phenomena were collectively called post transcriptional gene silencing.[151]" The above quote is from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_interference ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- It did not take long to recognize that the same mechanism(s) take place in other virus infected forms of life. Here is a very recent paper concerning RNAi and Ebola (plus other human infecting virus). Title: "Postexposure Protection of Guinea Pigs against a Lethal Ebola Virus Challenge Is Conferred by RNA Interference" "RNA interference (RNAi) represents a powerful, naturally occurring biological strategy for inhibiting gene expression. RNAi has been used in cell-culture systems to inhibit the replication of a number of viruses that cause disease in humans, including HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus, influenza virus, herpesviruses, poliovirus, human papillomavirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and coxsackievirus (reviewed in [4, 5]); more recently, it has been used to inhibit some emerging and reemerging viruses, including Marburg virus [6], lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus [7], and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus [8]. " http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/193/12/1650.full Here is a link that might be useful: RNA interference (RNAi) and Ebola Virus

All this reminds me of Marek's disease in poultry. Some of the ornamental breeders on finding Marek's in one bird cull their whole flocks over and over. On discussing this with my avian veterinarian he says that all birds carry Marek's but, some show symptoms and some do not via stress or poor genetics. One of my friends that had a large collection of Hippeastrum collection gave me his entire collection because of perceived TMV several years ago (large). He was going to burn them. I adjusted the PH of the soil, sprayed for bugs, and all turned back a dark green. Go figure. Are they infected? I don't really care. They bloom and grow fine for a long time. A few look mosaic when I first drag them out of the basement and put in the full sun when their leaves are burned. Maybe that is what he saw. Who knows.

Roses self protect against aphids. Title: DYNAMIC ASPECTS OF THE CHEMICAL RELATION BETWEEN THE ROSE APHID MACROSIPHUM-ROSAE AND ROSE BUDS Author: MILES P W Author affiliation: WAITE AGRIC. RES. INST., UNIV. ADELAIDE, ADELAIDE, S. AUST. Published in: Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, volumn 37, pages 129-136, (1985). Abstract: "Dynamic aspects of the chemical relation between the rose aphid [Macrosiphum rosae] and rose buds.In warm weather, M. rosae (L.) walks off buds of hybrid tea roses during a critical period coinciding with the opening of the sepals. This behavior could not be related to histologically detectable barriers to feeding, nor to changes in the water content of the tissues or in their composition with respect to total soluble carbohydrate, amino nitrogen or phenolic compounds; major changes in tissue chemistry, effected by spraying the bushes with urea, did not affect the time at which the aphids left the buds. Tissue sap expressed from stems and sepals showed a significant increase in catechin content after, rather than during, the critical period. Once expressed, however, sap from buds at the critical stage showed a sharp in vitro rise in catechin content over a few hours, up to levels approximating those against which the insects discriminated in choice tests. The insects could well be sensitive to a developing capacity of tissue to accumulated catechin, possibly in response to their feeding activity."