Mark Walton
It almost sounds like sci-fi stuff but this has happened before to another popular plant variety.
“We have had other things like the red-tipped photinia fungus that came in the ‘80s. These things happen you just adapt to them and find other plant material,” Walton said.
But back to the roses and right up the road to the Gardens of the American Rose Center. Raj Singh of the LSU AgCenter is one of the state's leading research analyst for this disease known as rose rosette or witches broom. It morphs this plants into leggy spines and excessive thorns.
Laura Seagaugh
The Rose Society of Shreveport funds research to Texas A&M and the University of Tennessee to examine this problem. They are not going to take this lying down.
"No, no and the good thing is too that we know enough about rose rosette disease that we know what to do with it. We have a lot of educated horticulture professors. Dr. Allen Owings, who is a professor of horticulture who has worked with LSU AgCenter in Hammond. He is actually the chairman of the American Rose Center committee,” Seagaugh said.
Knockout roses
The experts offer a word of caution. Don't over react and pull up a plant that is not sick. Download a free pamphlet to learn more. Plus, interested folks can get together to talk about this knockdown of a disease.
“We also have a seminar that we are planning because we realize we have so many people in Shreveport, they have questions, want to know what's happening. So on Sept. 28, which is a Friday, Dr. Mark Windam and Dr. Singh are both going to be here at the American Rose Center. We are going to have a rose rosette seminar,” Seagaugh said.