Many events are being planned. We visited many other smaller collections that had limited rose material. The cultural revolution has taken a toll on many of these collections. Interest in gathering together old cultivars as well as native plant material is just being rekindled. Financing these collections is a real problem.
Many efforts are in place to help raise money - some at the expense of research programs.
Several Chinese researchers have been developing triploid roses for landscape settings. Since these plants do not develop seed, flowering is reported to be superior to traditional tetraploid roses. In several plantings, disease resistance appeared very good. The main thrust of the program appears to be at the Beijing Forestry University although we did see several versions of the program at other locations. When asked about plans for distribution of the database, our hosts said this would happen at some point in the future since the program was still under development.