Rubber Trees
Posted on May 26, 2013 Comments (5)
I think rubber trees are pretty cool, dripping out nice latex is just neat.
Latex is collected from trees which is then treated to make rubber. Hevea brasiliensis (originally found the Amazon basin in Brazil), the Pará rubber tree, sharinga tree, or, most commonly, the rubber tree, is a tree belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. Gutta-percha (Palaquium) is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia. The milky latex extracted from the trees is the primary source of natural rubber. Now refining petroleum is an alternative way for creating products that required rubber previously, but rubber is still economically important.
In 1876, Henry Wickham gathered thousands of para rubber tree seeds from Brazil, and these were germinated in Kew Gardens, England. The seedlings were then sent to India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia, Singapore and British Malaya (now Malaysia). Malaya was later to become the biggest producer of rubber. In the early 1900s, the Congo, Liberia and Nigeria also became significant producers of natural rubber latex.
11 million tons of natural rubber was produced in 2011, which represented approximately 42% of total production (42% from trees rather than created by processing petroleum). Asia accounted for 93% of the production of natural rubber (with Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia accounting for most of that total). Rubber latex is extracted from rubber trees. The total synthetic production of rubber in 2011 was 15 million tons, with Asia accounting for approximately 50% of production. (source International Rubber Study Group )
The economic life period of rubber trees in plantations is around 32 years – up to 7 years of immature phase and about 25 years of productive phase.
The trees have to be repeatedly cut (tapped) to keep the flow of latex going. The cut must be careful to avoid going too deep and damaging the cambial layer. The cuts must be repeated several times a day to keep the flow going, otherwise the tree will seal the cut and stop the flow. My memory is that the trees in Thailand were tapped twice a day, but maybe it is more frequent.
The first use of rubber was by the Olmecs, who centuries later passed on the knowledge of natural latex from the Hevea tree in 1600 BC to the ancient Mayans. They boiled the harvested latex to make a ball for a Mesoamerican ballgame.
Natural rubber is often vulcanized, a process by which the rubber is heated and sulfur, peroxide or bisphenol are added to improve resistance and elasticity, and to prevent it from perishing.
Some facts are taken from the Wikipedia page on natural rubber which also includes more details.
Does anyone know how to fix photos that Preview on mac shows in the proper orientation but WordPress doesn’t? It is annoying that software don’t make visible that actual image (if an image editing program decides to use hidden magic to show some modified version of a file, it should at least make an obvious way to see the real image or how are you suppose to edit it to be what you want?).
Photo of processing latex from rubber trees in Malaysia (by my father in the 1970s).
Related: photos of processing rubber, Malaysia, 1970’s – How do Plants Grow Into the Sunlight? – Backyard Wildlife: Robins Attack Holly Tree – Friday Fun: Kitten’s Curiosity Gets it Stuck and Mom Comes to Help
5 Responses to “Rubber Trees”
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May 27th, 2013 @ 1:47 pm
really impressive post, specially the 1st top picture is so beautiful, I also wanna see live this place….
May 30th, 2013 @ 9:57 am
Great post ! I remember we used to have a rubber true when i was a kid. But it died some years ago.
You post took me back to the same time. I miss that tree
June 7th, 2013 @ 1:37 pm
Brazil really tried to defend it’s ground on the rubber battlefield, but Malay vast production and the appearence of artificial material had really taken toll of our national treasure. It’s a shame because the extraction of the natural rubber is very lucrative and helps to maintain the forest, since you don’t have to clear it.
June 8th, 2013 @ 4:30 pm
Very nice information about this.. first time i am reading about rubber tree.. keep it up..
August 18th, 2013 @ 12:21 pm
This is very interesting! I thought rubber trees are rare and people don’t use them anymore!