One thing that has often puzzled me was the disqualification rule for stem on stem.

Can someone with greater experience than I, explain why this rule came about? I cannot for the life of me understand why we would d/q a rose for something that, for the most part, is totally obscured from general view. In many cases you have to be really be hunting for it.

Some shows that I have judged use beer bottles or milk glass vases and you would need to lift every specimen to examine it to see if it needed to be d/q'd.

With the increased use of wedging, many roses are wedged with just a small part of the stem in the water resulting in sagging roses even before the trophies are handed out. If stem on stem was not such a fatal penalty, longer stems would be possible and roses wouldn't be wilting in front the judges eyes.

After judging for almost 20 years, I still find it a very strange rule.