The history of rubber

Rubber trees have taken root in Sri Lanka and Malaysia, but the catch is that the planting industries in these two countries were dominated by coffee at the time, and people did not realize the great value of rubber trees. In the first 10 years of Z, when rooted in Asia, rubber trees were planted more for scientific research purposes. It was not until the 1890s that coffee rust devastated the entire coffee plantation industry in South and Southeast Asia. To fill the vacancy, the rubber plantation industry embarked on a road of rapid development. By 1907, the rubber planting area in Sri Lanka and Malaysia had exceeded 300,000 hectares.

In addition to seizing the opportunity of rust "creation", the efforts of scientists have also provided a strong impetus for the development of the industry. Among them, Henry Ridley, a British scientist who was the director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens at the time, made great contributions. His continuous rubber tapping method can be regarded as a milestone in the history of the development of the rubber industry.

A kind of tissue called "milk duct" is distributed in the body of the rubber tree. The milk duct is somewhat similar to the mammary glands in the animal body and is responsible for the manufacture and storage of latex. When the milk duct is broken open by external force, the internal pressure will "push" the latex out. Since most of the milk ducts are located in the bark, the rubber picker only needs to cut the bark, and the latex will flow out of the wound. In South America, workers use axes to chop down trees in tree trunks. This method cuts open the bark and at the same time damages the cambium under the bark. The so-called cambium is a thin layer of tissue between the bark and the xylem of the trunk. Although the cambium is thin, it is very important because both the bark and the trunk are formed by cells in the cambium. Only when the cells in the cambium keep dividing and growing can the trunk continue to grow thick.

Unlike the "axe opening" method, the rubber tapping method invented by Ridley uses a special knife to cut a very shallow hole in the bark of the rubber tree, but does not touch the cambium. Therefore, the latex can be collected without serious impact on the health of the rubber tree, which has extended the usable period of the rubber tree from a few years to several decades. After using the continuous tapping method, the production efficiency of the Asian silicone rubber products industry has greatly improved, leaving South America far behind, and Asian countries have begun to occupy the position of the world's rubber industry.

The advanced rubber tapping technology puts the South American rubber industry at a disadvantage in the competition, but it is a disease that makes the next blow to it. In 1905, a rubber tree disease called South American leaf blight appeared in a rubber plantation in Panama. In the following decades, leaf blight spread raging in Central America and reached Brazil in 1930. South American leaf blight is caused by a fungus called Microcyclus ulei. This fungus likes to infect all the young parts of the rubber tree, especially the young leaves. The infected young leaves will first show gray spots, and then the leaves will gradually twist and shrink until they become black and die after Z. Even if some young leaves grow into mature leaves by chance, the leaf blight bacteria can still infect and kill them. The rubber tree Z infected by leaf blight will eventually die and fall off a large number of leaves, and the vitality of the rubber tree and the ability to produce rubber will be severely damaged.