RUBBER FROM RUSSIAN DANDELIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25428, 8 January 1944, Page 2

RUBBER FROM RUSSIAN DANDELIONS

WAR-TIME EXPERIMENTS AT KEW GARDENS An account of the work being done at Kew Gardens during the war was given recently by Sir Geoffrey Evans, economic botanist at Keyj. One of the most interesting experiments has been that of trying to develop additional sources of rubber. Seeds of three plants, from which rubber has of recent years been produced in Russia, were received at Kew and cultivated there and at 22 'other stations. The plants were two kinds of dandelion— Kok-saghyz and Knmsaghyz—and a salsify, Tau-saghyz. lhe last was everywhere a failure, and Krim-saghyz proved rather delicate. The most promising is Kok-saghyz, which comes from the Ukraine and Polapd, and seems capable of giving as good results in Britain as in Russia—that is to say, a yield of perhaps 65 to 1001 b of rubber to the acre, a figure which may be compared with 8001 b to 10001 b an acre of Para rubber. These Russian dandelions contain from 2 per cent, to 17 per cent, of rubber in the dry root. No British native dandelion has been found to have more than 5 per cent. The rubber is found in the cells of the plant, and cannot be collected, as with Para rubber, from the latex or sap. Kok-saghyz may be planted in the autumn and harvested the following August, or it may be sown in the spring, and treated as an 18-month crop. The evidence is, however, that it needs go6d soil, and cannot be grown on second-class land. Three or four crops sown in Scotland were poor. The plant requires, moreover, a great deal of hand-weeding, which is extremely expensive here. In Russia this is done by women and children on collective farms. The rubber is of reasonably good quality, but so far the authorities do not advise its general cultivation in this country. One .of the most hopeful developments has been in connection with the supply of potato seed to the Mediterranean colonies and also to Nigeria and Kenya. These countries have in recent years been growing increasing quantities of potatoes, but owing to the attacks of disease it was necessary to import fresh virus-free seed potatoes from Britain every year. This traffic the course of the war interrupted, but a method was devised at Kew by which the “ rose end ” of the potato is cut off and dried —thougn not enough to kill it. Normal crops can be grown from these dried “ chips,” which weigh only one-fifteenth of the usual seed potatoes. It should be possible by this method to have supplies sent by air, and, in fact, some have gone to the British Mediterranean colonies. I