Now that may become a reality. Researchers at the USDA Northern Regional Research Center at Peoria, Illinois, have screened 6,500 species of weeds for possible desirable traits. Many show great potential, including 30 species that look promising as oilweeds. Several species that are established across North America contain natural rubber or other products useful to the petrochemical industry which alone uses an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the country's petroleum and natural gas. Someday, farmers may grow crops that produce botano-chemicals that could be substituted for petrochemicals.
Most crops currently being grown for oil produce their oil in seeds or nuts.
But entire plants of milkweed, sowthistle, quackgrass, goldenrod, and Russian dandelion might be processed for natural rubber or other hydrocarbons. Quackgrass, for example, yields gutta-percha, used in making golf balls and some plastic products. While complex extraction is required to obtain the desirable botano-chemicals from whole plant crops, the researchers consider them promising. In the fall of 1941, a tumbleweed blizzard blocked railroad and automobile traffic in eastern Washington and caused the death of a motorist whose car was trapped in a wave of thistles. The victim's body was found covered by the weeds where he had fallen from exhaustion as he sought to free his car.