Rose Midge- Identify the Symptoms and Treatment (Preventive Measures)

Funny thing about rose midge.  You can grow roses for many years and never see it, and then suddenly it appears.  I'm sure it comes in to the garden in the soil from potted roses.  But once you have it, it will be a problem every season thereafter.  It's no big deal, really, you just have to remember to apply some Merit Granules, or a grub preventer from your garden center, on the soil of the rosebeds twice a season-- once in early spring, and once in mid-July.

Rose midge is a teeny-tiny flying insect that you never see, and that spends its life in the soil of rosebeds--except the day it flies up to the top of the plant and devours the teeny-tiny developing rosebuds.  If you don't know what to look for, the rose stem will continue to grow normally-- except it won't have a bud (and consequently, a flower) at the top.  Many people call these flowerless stems "blind shoots," but a rose plant will virtually never throw up a flowerless cane of its own volition.  So it's not really a blind shoot, but one that's been damaged by rose midge.

Rose midge damage, once spotted, is easily pruned off the plant, and a new stem will start growing to replace the damaged one.  Not tragic, but pruning will delay the date that you expected to see a flower on the plant.  Again, it's no big deal unless you're an exhibitor who expects to have flowers in bloom on rose show day. 

There are a couple of ways to spot rose midge damage early on.  If you're in the garden every day, you may notice tiny black (and dead) sepals at the top of a new stem, surrounding an empty space where the bud should be.  These dead sepals fall off the plant quickly, so you may not see them at all-- just no bud.  Midge often strikes roses very early in the spring when the new canes may be only a couple of inches tall.  You might notice that the inside surfaces of the topmost tiny leaf petioles are spread wide open and face almost straight upward, rather than being tightly curled inward, facing the stem.  Wow, that's hard to explain!  And I don't know if I can make it clearer, except that normally, the points of the leaves would point upward, and with midge damage, the leaf tips point downward.  Like the view of an umbrella from above.

Anyway, be on the lookout for rose midge damage, or if you've had midge in previous years, treat the soil now!

Ann Hooper
Primary Products
ann@primaryproducts.com

http://www.primaryproducts.com