Old rose bed syndrome...

How many of you have ever actually seen this? I haven't ever seen it in 28 years of growing roses though I understand how it could happen... through build up of pathogens that an old rose might have built up a resistance too but a new rose wouldn't etc... what sparked this was I've just bought a rose called 'White Meidiland' and on the tag it says not to plant the rose in an old bed that had previously contained roses and to do so may void and warranty or guarantee.

in german it's called "Bodenmüdigkeit", in english the (better) neat expression is 'replant desease'. A good description of the soil issue is given at this site:

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may be the dealer you have bought the rose from had too many complaints from 'hard core rosarians' ?

happy digging and soil exchange!

Bemo

Thanks Bemo... I have read that link before and can understand HOW it might happen... it's just I have never seen it happen and have planted roses in old rose beds many times before... I usually dig in any mulch and re mulch when I plant but have never replaced the old soil. I'm just curious if anyone has actually ever seen it or whether it might be region specific thing or whether it's just a myth?

I have wondered about this too.
That was a interesting Bemo. Thankyou for putting the article on here.
I am learning new Rose imformation on here every night. Thanks TasV !

Can you feed a child with eggs and bacon and a glass of wine, and nothing else, for 2 weeks? I don't think so; whilst we 'grown ups' may survive it, the kid would get sick, because the poor little one is not yet ready for such a heavy "diet".

Same with roses. Roses are heavy feeders. If you want them to grow well and be healthy, you must feed them really well. Roses tend to exhaust the soil, especially repeat blooming roses, and when transplanting a new rose into the soil where an older one has thrived, new one won't do it well and establish its root system if you don't renew the soil, add compost and all new nutrients required for a start-up.

So I believe 'replant disease' it's mostly a myth, and its true cause is lack of required food supplements in old rose beds. The myth is still circling around because many people forget that simple fact about roses -- you need to feed them -- generously and variedly -- and newly transplanted roses need some *extra* nutrient treatments to establish well. You must not feed them same way as some old, long established rose that is comfortable in its bed.

How old are your roses and how often do you feed yours and with what. Also have you started pruning yours yet ??

There is some evidence that rose roots do give off a growth inhibitor.
Title: Growth inhibitor accumulates in the nutrient solution of closed system rose cultivation.

Author: Sato, N.

Authors affiliation: Shizuoka Agricultural Experiment Station, 678-1 Tomioka, Shizuoka, Iwata, Japan.

Published in: Acta Horticulturae (2005), 697(Proceedings of the International Symposium on Soilless Culture and Hydroponics, 2004), pages 511-516.

Abstract: "The circulating soln. was collected and analyzed for its nutrient concn. Three types of solns. were prepd. for the bioassay. One was the circulating nutrients soln. Activated charcoal was added to second soln. The third soln. was prepd. to the analyzed formula of nutrients soln. using distd. water. The rooted cuttings of rose were planted in each soln. and incubated in the growth chamber. The rate of change of fresh wt. before and after the incubation was biggest for the prepd. soln., which does not include the circulating soln. The fresh wt. growth rate was smallest for the circulating soln., and the results for the activated charcoal treatment was between them. Since the activated charcoal does not have a sterilization effect, it is possible that the growth inhibitors accumulated in the soln. during the circulating cultivation of roses. "

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Another scientific article: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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A rose society article: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I tend to agree with this statement from the Marin Rose Society article with regard to allelopathy:

If the theory that roses produce some type of inhibiting chemical into the soil by their roots, it doesn’t explain why other plants have no problem growing in a space where a rose has previously resided. It would also seem that if this allelopathy were a true problem, adjacent roses might be impacted, but that does not appear to be the case/

Maybe it is a problem in a closed system as outlined above though.

I would agree with the last sentance in the above quote, when you see massive rose beds planted out why are they not effected by allelopathy.
Roses being gross feeders tend to utilize the nutrient levels in the soils, so when replacing an old cultivar which could have been in that plot of soil for 20 or so years, you would have to say, putting a bare rooted or a rose potted up, would have to struggle for a while if soil condition was not improved. What you would find that over a period of months, or even years there may be a struggle going on , but once the roots went outside the perimeter , growth would resume at normal rates

I am a dumb bugger, where is it mentioned in literature that rose are "gross" feeders, please explain, one and all.

Greengold.com.au

?????

Hi simon

I thought of (please explaining) I put in a web site

I am reading a book at the moment called Complete Roses courtesy of Castle Hill Library. There is a section on companion plants, the author suggests growing Marigolds in soil previously occupied by roses. Marigolds also discourage root-knot nematodes when used as a companion plant.

I have observed almost nil growth on HT roses grown for 30 years in the one spot despite doing all the right things to encourage growth

There would be many other things I would be asking about before putting it down to old rose bed syndrome. For example, 30 years might be reaching the limit any one grafted rose can live for... especially some HT whose vigour might be reduced in the first place. If you took buds off and regrafted them and planted them into the saqme spot and they failed to thrive then I might be looking at old rose bed syndrome. Or, if you dug them up and put them in a new place and they flourished then ORBS might be a factor... time to experiment Bruce

I would agree with you Simon on vigour loss, I remember discussing this with Laurie Newman years ago about some moderns losing vigour, and my plan to introduce OGR and species genes back into them. Its sort of like tissue culture , after many generations of splitting the calus, vigour is greatly reduced. You would have to wonder, buds taken of plants, say 100 yrs ago and put into propagation for many generations , something has to give

Do you remember me talking about the beds of Rosa Indica Major I had for rootstock , and I shovelled it all out because of mildew , this year I planted young seedlings into the same soil and with no ill effect. I think if the soil is enriched you have no problem with ORBS.

Ok, what if I through this one into the mix, 20 years ago at the rose nursery I worked at we had access to "very old" Peace budwood, the true cream and pink. If you buy a Peace today, the colour cream is nearly white. Is this because we are budding/grafting a long way from the original plant. Has anyone had a plant that is budded onto rootstock and one that is a cutting grown plant next to each other or knows of this in someone elses garden. My point is does the rootstock become tired

Howdy Roseman

Firstly about peace , One of the properties I work at have a standard peace , the colours seem to be more yellowy and pink blend and the flowers are huge, one I measured went well over 6" plus.

Secondly I dont think the rootstock gets tired , but may have a degree of incompatablity, it may take years for it to occur but it may happen. In my grafting book there are pics of incompatabitly of fruit tree scions on certain cultivars, the pics show a line of incompatabilty where they actually never knit together properly.

Its sort of like the prunus cultivars ( peaches, apricots, plums and cherries) although they all come under the genus prunus not all are compatable (graft /scion combinations) , it makes you want to think about the genus rosa, are some more compatable than others or if partially compatable, may survive for many years , then finally break down
cheers warren

Hi Warren, I have a Cecile Brunner on Multiflora that is 31 years old and is not suffering from any incompatability problems as it is going gang busters.
You could be right about the usual run of HT's.

Your grafting book sounds like The Grafters Handbook by R J Garner.

Makes me thnk about breeding own-root roses to be done with this grafting thing for good

howdy ozeboy

Your Cecile Brunner is probably growing well on multiflora as one of its parents is a multiflora hybrid making it more compatable as a rootstock.
Years ago here in Australia and New Zealand used Rosa indica major as rootstock for HT's before the change over to multiflora and other alternative rootstocks. Maybe one of the reasons for change, for example (multiflora) was the vigour and lack of thorns making it easy for handling. Just looking with an open mind.

A few years ago I grafted some of the roseswhich I bred on Rosa Indica Major , to see how growth and performance would be effected on this particular rootstock, within 1 year every thing went well, with trunks thicker than a broomstick.

Yep the book is the Grafters Handbook.

cheers warren

Warren, you have done it, " Incompatability ". That's the first really good explanation for going ownroot. I have the grafting bible and looked at the diagrams regarding this problem but thought the industries rootstocks have been trialed and proven 100%.
Dr Huey starts well though the HT's start to dwindle around 8 to 10 years.
Multiflora takes longer around 10 to 15 years depending on the sion variety.

Looks like using rootstocks as nursery roots and burying 2 year old roses well into the ground to allowing 100mm of the sion below the surface to make it's own roots. If in the future the rootstock compatability breaks down then the sion will develope ownroots. I think this is the reason why rootstocks start to sucker madly around 10 years when the sion no longer feeds from it. The result is the vigorous rootstock starts to send up a lot of shoots to survive.

Looks like purely ownroot roses are the way to go though they have the problem that not all roses like all types of soils and some don't produce roots freely in any soils.

Both systems of propagation are needed to cope with all the situations that arise. Budding is best if large numbers of new roses are to be sent across Oz or the world.

This is the one thing that has tipped the scale in favour of ownroot but beware some rose varieties will not be viable on their ownroots.
More reserch and trial necessary for both systems won't suit all.

Some of the modern HT's growing on their own roots can be a bit dickey, floribunda's not so bad , and mini's only have to lay on the ground and they layer themselves. I think what you have to try and see is rootstock which is closely related to the scion. I do 'nt want to harp about Rosa Indica major all the time , but if you look at its breeding it is closely related to tea's.

Thorns and all I still think this a good rootstock to use. before i go, years ago I had a standard iceberg broken off below the scion in the wind , the rootstock was multiflora,I budded it ,and years down the track it formed this huge ball of tissue , always wondered if it was an imcompatabilty thing going on, what i grafted on top is losing vigour every year

Warren I should have twigged when looking at the large ball of tissue on a lot of grafted roses. The above you mentioned, " Losing vigour every year " is what I couldn't understand before though after reading the bible in more detail it is really starting to look very clear, "Incompatability."

Simon I have quite a few HT's that have no vigour, one is 'Red Gold' on DR Huey and was planted in 1985. Will graft it on Multiflora and plant it in the old spot. I have taken buds off dying HT's and the new plants are vigorous.
LETS PROVE IF IT IS INCOMPATABILITY OR OLD BED SYNDROME- ROOT-KNOT NEMOTODES.

I've also noticed, on some old roses, great big galls (crown gall I think they call it) form on the graft and these were associated with gradual reduction in vigour. I have a 'Double Delight' on Dr Huey and have recently (4 weeks ago) regrafted it onto a long multiflora cane to make a standard of it (this is its last chance... if it is still rubbish it will be beheaded and regrafted with something else) because the parent plant is terrible with hopeless vigour (was one of those cheapie roses in body bags at the local hardware store). The graft has taken but hasn't sprouted yet. I plan to leave it where it is and move the whole plant this winter. I have done this before and the resulting 'Double Delight' flower that came from the multiflora graft was huge and a sight to behold (you've seen this old photo as I've mentioned this about a year ago). I lost this one when I tried to strike the long multiflora cane. This time I struck the long cane first last winter and grafted onto a strongly growing cane about a metre long:

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