GUAYULE RUBBER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 February 1943, Page 4

GUAYULE RUBBER

PRODUCTION IN UNITED STATES THOUSANDS OF ACRES BEING PLANTED. WORK OF THE FOREST SERVICE. (By Virgil Wyatt in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Saying little and working virtually night and day, the United States Forest Service is rushing its work of preparing to plant thousands of acres in California and the South-west with the guayule shrub, -.which long before white men came to the Americas yielded rubber for the Indians of Mexico. In this country, the Forest Service has laid out three huge nurseries of about 700 acres, covered with miles . of overhead sprinkler systems in which 350,000,000 to 400,000,000 seedlings are being grown for transplanting in the spring on 30,000 to 35,000 acres throughout the South-west. It is believed that under the most favourable conditions, guayule, according to the Forest Service, will yield between 1.200 and 1,800 pounds of rubber an acre. NURSERY PROJECTS Other nursery projects of similar acreage are located in the Salinas Valley and at Indio, and a fourth is being planned somewhere in the central valleys of California. The highest hope is held for the nurseries in San Diego County. Here, because of the long, dry summers and spring and fall rains, the Forest Service hopes to grow two crops of seedlings annually, in the fall and spring, one of the few places in the United States where that is believed possible. Seeding in the San Diego nursery already is under way. Plantings already several years old in the Salinas Valley are expected to yield about 600 tons of rubber this year. When all the nurseries are in operation, it is hoped to have enough guayule for field planting 208,000 acres by the spring of 1944. If all plans materialise, the Forest Service states, rubber production from guayule should rise to 33,000 tons in the fall of 1944, and 47,000 tons in 1945. If a sustained annual planting programme of 176,000 acres is carried out and the shrub is harvested at the end of two years’ growth in the field, rubber production should rise to about 80,000 tons annually. GOVERNMENT FINANCE. Under a Bill recently signed by President Roosevelt, the Government can spend 130,000,000 dollars in developing guayule and other rubber-bearing plants on 500,000 acres of land. Under present plans, the Government will lease all the land, grow and harvest the crops, and operate processing mills for extracting the rubber. It is planned to build 56 mills, probably near the fields. Guayule is no stranger to the rubber industry. It has been yieldng rubber for commercial purposes, though on a comparatively small scale, since 1904. The shrub is a native of northern Mexico and certain regions of Texas. In its wild state, it yields about 10 per cent of its dry weight in rubber, but improved seed developed in '35 years of experimentation has increased this to 20 per cent. The Forest Service states that guayule rubber is the same kind of rubber as that of the famous Hevea tree in the East Indies. The mature shrub is usually about three feet or less in height, with greyish-green leaves and small yellowish flowers. Unlike the Hevea tree, however, which is tapped for its rubber, guayule is harvested in its entirety, and the fields must be replanted with nursery stock. The Forest Service was designated to carry on the emergency rubber project by the Department of Agriculture because of its experience in operating large-scale nurseries and tree-planting jobs. Aiding, however, are experts from such bureaus as Plant Industry, Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering, Entomology and Plant Quarantine, and the Soil Conservation Service. 1