A tiny mite carried through the wind is threatening to take down the $400 million rose industry, and researchers from California to Pennsylvania are starting a five-year study to stop it.
“Garden roses, which form the cornerstone of the multi-billion dollar landscape industry, annually generating wholesale U.S. domestic bare-root and container production valued at about $400 million,” said Dr. Dave Byrne, Texas A&M AgriLife Research horticulturist and holder of the Basye Chair of Rose Genetics in College Station. “There is an urgent need to control rose rosette disease.”
An almost $4.6 Specialty Crop Research Initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture has launched the effort, said Byrne, project director.