In the spring during moist, humid conditions, ascospores and conidia are wind-borne and rain-splashed to newly emerging leaf tissue.

Conidia are produced in the diseased stem tissues and dispersed via water—most commonly by rain or wind—into the openings of leaves in the spring season.

As these lesions appear, acervuli continuously produce conidia asexually as long as the climate remains optimally wet and warm.

Once defoliation occurs in the fall season, the hyphae of the Diplocarpon rosae invade the dead leaf tissue and form pycnidia lined with conidiophores under the old acervuli.

[4] The pycnidia then overwinter in the lesions of infected tissue and burst in the spring, releasing conidia to be dispersed by water and effectively completing the disease cycle.

Diplocarpon rosae also has a sexual stage, although this is rarely observed in North America due to unfavorable environmental conditions.

Conidiospores involved with infection are only dispersed via water, making the disease most active in the late spring and early fall seasons, or other periods that experience similar climate conditions.

Fungicides, such as mancozeb, chlorothalonil, flutriafol, penconazole, or a copper-based product, applied upon new leaf emergence or first appearance of black spot, can be used to control the disease.