Researchers look at alternative sources of rubber

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Category: (Self-Study) Technology/Innovations

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Katrina Cornish, a professor at Ohio State University who studies rubber alternatives, raises dandelions and the desert shrub guayule in greenhouses at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, Ohio.

She and other researchers harvest the stretchy rubber substances they produce and use special machines to dip them into medical gloves, parts for trachea tubes, and others. And she thinks those products could forever alter the landscape of agriculture in the United States.

Most rubber comes from the Hevea tree and processing happens overseas—the U.S. isn’t prepared to process rubber domestically. But Cornish also says the threats of disease, climate change, and international trade tensions also mean that it would be a smart investment to work on growing and processing domestic alternatives.

Cornish thinks that just as Tesla opened up the possibility of mainstream electric cars by first marketing the product as a luxury good, premium goods need to be made with dandelion and guayule to inspire producers to grow more meaningful amounts of either of those crops.

But while some of the researchers and farmers are optimistic about the potential of these crops, they also say drastic changes would need to happen in markets and processing before we ever see fields full of these out-of-the-box plants.

In the meantime, farmers in the U.S. rely on an agricultural economy built on scale, so they farm the crops that allow them options of where to sell, said Curt Covington, senior director of institutional business at AgAmerica Lending. He added that the bankers financing those farmers often don’t want to take the risk of a full switch to a crop that doesn’t have established markets. That, he said, could be a problem for the country as climate change exacerbates threats to crops like cotton and alfalfa, thirsty crops grown in the Southwest, in the future.

Though guayule only uses half as much water as cotton and alfalfa, if the economics don’t support it, that doesn’t do the majority of farmers much good.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

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[Greenhouse with rubber dandelions]

[Katrina Cornish harvesting rubber dandelion seeds]

Katrina Cornish (interview): “My job isn’t done until this is a permanent feature of the landscape. People wouldn’t be able to imagine the U.S. without having corn in it or soybeans in it. But I want see a U.S. that you can’t imagine isn’t a major rubber producer. That’s what has to happen.”

[Katrina Cornish harvesting rubber dandelion seeds]

[Katrina Cornish placing harvested rubber dandelion seeds into paper bag]

[Bee on rubber dandelion flower]

Katrina Cornish (interview): “The technical challenges are pretty much all been overcome. So we know how to do this. The challenge is financial.”

[Dipping machine operating inside research lab]

Katrina Cornish (interview): “You have to start on the small scale so that you can fund the processing plants. We’ve got to get that first one up and then it will proliferate based on profits and the commercial viability of number one.”

[Guayule research field]

[David Dierig in guayule research field]

David Dierig (interview): “This plant is a lot more resilient than any other plant that we grow here in Arizona for agriculture. It’s got drought tolerance.”

[David Dierig holding guayule plant]

[Guayule plant]

David Dierig (interview): “On the average it uses a lot less water than crops like corn, cotton, alfalfa, wheat. All those crops use more water than guayule does. So it’s really kind of the perfect crop that will fit into a farm setting, allowing the grower to make decisions about their other crops with having a crop that uses less water.”

[Greenhouse at sunrise]

[Guayule plants in greenhouse]

[Employee Angel Dias working in greenhouse with guayule plants]

David Dierig (interview): “The reason that we’re so interested in guayule is because we need a domestic source of natural rubber. If we continued to rely on a supply that comes from southeast Asia, there’s all these risks that are just out there.”

[Person working in lab]

[Tire made from guayule rubber inside Bridgestone office]

Katrina Cornish (interview): “You cannot go to a passenger car tire, where they cannot afford to spend more than $1.50 without making your tires cost more on your car, without first having production capacity and economies of scale.”

[Guayule latex inside barrels]

[Katrina Cornish lifting guayule latex out of a beaker]

[Katrina Cornish showing medical glove made from guayule rubber]

Katrina Cornish (interview): “So we have to have these alternatives to meet the projected demand, even if Hevea (rubber tree) doesn’t collapse. Now if Hevea collapses, we need them yesterday.”

[Parts for trachea tubes made from guayule rubber]

[Researcher dusting parts for trachea tubes made from guayule rubber with powder]

[Laboratory]

This script was provided by The Associated Press.

The related lesson for this video will be published next Tuesday.