It's possible, Margie, but mostly likely the rose will be larger if it is grafted to a vigorous root stock than than it would be grown own root.

A lot of weak roses were budded and introduced to the market and were good garden plants because of the additional vigor provided by the root stock. They would have never made it to market or been successful in the garden, if they were introduced own root.

http://file.scirp.org/Html/15-...


Younis and Riaze [4] investigated the effect of different rootstocks on rose propagation of two roses. Rosa bourboniana and “Grussanteplitz” were selected as rootstocks and three hybrid tea rose cultivars including Kardinal, “Gold medal” and “Whisky mac” were budded on them to study their compatibility, growth and development. Cultivars of Gold medal, Whisky mac and Kardinal showed maximum growth and flowering when budded on Grussanteplitz as compared to Rosa bourboniana.

Margie .... that happens. It depends on both the rose and the root stock. Some root stocks will accept any scion budded to it, while others are more picky. Also, you have to take into consideration the vigor of the roses used as the root stock in this kind of study.

It could be that one would get the same results with any rose budded to grussanteplitz vs bourboniana. If bourboniana was just naturally less vigorous than grussanteplitz, bourboniana would not be able to pass along as much vigor to the rose that was budded to it.

In this case, the study is reporting the results using the same scions without information about the inherent vigor of the root stocks being used in the study.

That's the problem with some of these studies. Unless you really know that the vigor of the two roses used as root stock are "equal", any conclusions from the study are skewed. Researchers report the results of this kind of study without taking that into consideration.

The corral method sounds perfect- thanks! Good point about the own root vs. grafted.

Another big cane was broken from the base yesterday, so I went ahead and pruned a couple of feet off the tops. Except for 2 canes with buds at the tips- I can't bring myself to remove blooms. I've got bulbs to plant nearby soon and it has vicious thorns I'd like to avoid.

Well, maybe that's the whole point, not all rootstocks are equal and therefore you will get different results even when using the same sample rose.
Sometimes, it's difficult to find fact based info.
Thanks for your input.

Neal said:
"Another big cane was broken from the base yesterday, so I went ahead and pruned a couple of feet off the tops. Except for 2 canes with buds at the tips- I can't bring myself to remove blooms."
I understand where you are coming from. Last week we had a bad storm and I had to cut off a few of those little monster canes. I took a photo of the flower, cut off a couple of feet and placed the flowers in a vase - done and over with.

Neal ....

It's fine not to prune off the buds. You prune for a purpose. At this time of year, you are pruning for storm protection, not to promote new growth. If you thought those canes that you left might be damaged by a coming storm, you would probably want to prune them.

You don't have to prune all of your roses, only those which you think may have breakage.

Margie ... I thought about the results of the study you quoted last night after I signed off and thought they might have been testing for floriferness and wrote about that in their conclusions, but actually the study may have proved the viability of one root stock vs another.

>>>>Sometimes, it's difficult to find fact based info.

Part of what makes it so difficult is that there are so many variables. Soil, ambient temperatures, and more. It's hard to make all things equal in all studies.

Ralph Moore spent years trying to develop a universal root stock. One of his favorite quotes was, "As soon as you think you know everything about roses, along comes a rose to prove you wrong."

Smiles,
Lyn

Here's some research done years ago...
hopefully this link works.
http://media.wix.com/ugd/e6654...
This is a copy of the American Rose Annual from 1951, written by Dr. Buck.

It's a link posted by WIRosarian in response to a similar discussion on GW.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/d...

The strange thing is, the original poster on that thread got pretty upset because the thread took a scientific turn, and she wanted people to do an informal study by buying roses on different rootstocks. People answering her took it almost as a proposal for research, and answered, basically, that 1. it's already been done 2. it would be a waste of people's money 3. you are not controlling variables so results mean nothing 4. here's a better idea, and so on. I'm sad that she was hurt and offended, because the discussion and ideas that ensued were really interesting.
( @Zuzu ---Sue----if I'm not supposed to post a link to another gardening site, please remove it for me! I'm not sure...just wanted to share some good info along the lines of what people here were discussing. )

Not a problem, Cindi. We don't like it when people put links in their plant comments or when they provide links to other databases while ignoring our own ATP Database. This information isn't provided anywhere on ATP, so the link is useful.

That was a fascinating discussion, but I didn't see where the original poster got upset. Was that in a different thread?

Cindi ....

Thanks for posting the links to Dr. Buck's article and the GW discussion.

It was great reading the Buck article again and I enjoyed reading about other rose gardener's experience with various root stocks.

'Pink Clouds' is the root stock developed by Ralph Moore. What's interesting is that it is a cross of a miniature x a species rose ('Oakington Ruby' x 'Rosa multiflora Thunb.')

Yes, it's (edit to clarify-her other thread, where she got upset) on page 3 or so now. She waited a month before saying anything, and in the meantime, her original thread went on and on deeper in science. One of the best threads on there in a long time, so my jaw dropped when I read her reaction. She's never been in front of a committee defending research, that's for sure. It's rough. Her question was valid, for sure. I've compared roses grown on different rootstocks and wondered which is better for my location.
I love forums because it's a place where a person can be a teacher on one thread and a student on another. We're all new at something, and there's always new information coming out. The scientists who answered that thread were generous with information, and I appreciate that.

Lyn, I would love to get some of that root stock and learn to graft or bud. I've been watching videos on chip grafting and I ordered wax tape and a knife. Hopefully that will be more successful than my other propagation experiments. I haven't totally given up on rooting cuttings, but the outlook is not good.
Neal, if you make one of those corrals, please post a picture. I'm having trouble visualizing it, but it sounds like a great solution to some of my sprawlers.

My view of it had only one page, with 24 comments and no option to see more, perhaps because I'm not a GW member.

Oh it's a different thread altogether. I sent you a link.

Thanks, Cindi.

I have a couple of roses grafted onto Manetti and De La Grifferaie, and both of those rootstocks do a good job, but most of mine are grafted onto Dr. Huey, R. multiflora, and R. fortuniana. I think the methods used in grafting might be more important than the type of rootstock used. My roses grafted onto multiflora from Palatine, for instance, always end up much larger than roses grafted onto the same rootstock from Pickering or Hortico.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/di...

I thought this was an interesting thread as the person wants to know the characteristics of various rootstocks. And that's what I would like to know as well. I found the answers to the question to be informative. But, I still wanted more info on the characteristics.

I came upon this article:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/di...
Under "Rosa Canina Inemis" - it states it, "produces long stalks and vivid colours". Colours??? I was under the impression the grafting was done solely for vigor. It did not occur to me that other characteristics might be introduced but it makes sense.

And this last link sumed it all up for me:
http://leto.mgk.u-szeged.hu/RA...
Under "Introduction" read the 3rd and 4th sentence
....characteristics such as plant architecture, vigor, nutrient status, flower yield and quality of flowers.

The only reason I began thinking about the characteristics of rootstock is because Neal brought up the extremely long canes on Golden Fairy Tale. Guess what? I have a very long cane on my Golden Fairy Tale, a long cane on both of my Brother's Grimm, a long cane on Red Riding Hood, Pomponella and 2 long canes on Dark Desire. The canes are thick, rigid, very long, reach almost straight up and curve slightly downward at the tip. Because they are so rigid, they will break with a strong wind - that's why I pruned them. Since I am dealing with anywhere from one to two long canes (it's not all the canes on the bush) I was considering trying to gradually bend those individual canes come this Spring. And eventually "peg" them.

Cindi, could you please send me the link - I would like to read it as well - thanks in advance.

"...characteristics such as plant architecture, vigor, nutrient status, flower yield and quality of flowers."

Funny. I wouldn't separate all of these other characteristics from vigor. When I use the term "vigor," I think of it as embodying all of these other criteria. In my mind, a more vigorous rose is one with a sturdier and more pleasing architecture, superior nutrient status, and higher flower yield and quality.

Great links, Margie!
In that last link, the research conducted in Kosovo, I have to wonder why they didn't have a control of the same roses grown own-root, measured the same way. His conclusion that the mini roses grew well on laxa didn't consider that they could have grown better own root , or on another rootstock. His other conclusion about how rootstock has a great effect on adaptation, etc, is interesting, but where's his research or references for that conclusion? Not saying it isn't so, just saying he needs to support his conclusions. I would love to read more on that.