Laurel outlook., 1944-02-16
Beat Blight in
Brazil Rubber
Ford Company Plantation to
Fut 1000 Tons on
Market in 1916.


BEL TERRA, BRAZIL. - This
huge, Jungle-bound rubber planta.
ton OF the Ford company deep ir
Amazonla will put 1000 tons of high
grade rubber on the competitive
market in 1916 and seven times that
In our years, Archibald Johnston,
director, says.
After 10 years of extensive expert
ments to overcome the dreaded leaf
blight that has held back rubber cul-
tlvatlon in this hemisphere, tech
nlcians are convinced they are over
the hump and can begin large-scale
production.
The significance lies not only in
the promised production but also in
the fact that tropical America can
bring commercial rubber develop
ment back to the Western hemi-
sphere.
The painstaking and often heart
breaking research which has finally
conquered the blight was not calcu-
lated for this war by the private and
governmental agriculturalists of the
United States and cooperating sis
ter nations. Rather, it was a long
range program destined to insure
thai never again will American in
dustry face the rubber shortage
which came with December Z.
Blight-Resistant Tree.
Key to the solution of This nrOh-
lem, which has caused failure of
numerous plantation efforts in these
countries, has been the development
of a blight resistant, yet high yield
ing tree through an ingenious COM
bination of methods. The solution
means an American production
cheap enough to meet the 20 cents a
pound price of the prewar Indies.
The native hevea Br~asilensis grow
ing wild throughout the Amazon ter
ritory has always resisted the blight.
But the finely bred, bodybuilding
plantation strains of the Indies have
never thrived here.
The problem was to find some way
of getting a high-yielding tree with
the native strains ability to live
through blight.
At Fordlandia-the other Ford
plantation, up-river on the Tapajos
from here-at experiment stations
in Brazil and Costa RIGA, and on
Goodyear plantations in the latter
republic, the fight against the blight
has gone on.
The blight is being licked two ways
first by a tedious, artificial method
of making one tree from two, and
second, by getting hybrid strains
which incorporate both resistance
and high yield. But it takes eight
years to test these strains.
So while they wait and work with
the new s~trains-and they have sew
eral established and will have more
men have created their ar
tifcial strain by putting an umbrella
of resistant foliage on top of a six
foot trunk of high-yielding hevea.
Rubber From Double Tree.
1t is from this type of tree that
AloI lQDDGl Will COlllC-ui IdSl q |
small amount will reach U. S. manu-
,a%cturerS this year. But as soon as
iefnite strains can be established by
he hybrid selection, bud propaga-
ion will enable all planters to raise
,ven-yielding stands of trees.
By the umbrella method high
trees are raised to a six
cot height in the trunk, when their
op is chopped off. To that is graft
ID the top of a resistant but low
fielding tree. From then on all
eaf shoots are of the resistant
train, the tree survives and flour
she's, the trunk retaining its rich
atex properties and the upper
ranches their strength.
Since tapping is done within six
of the ground, the system is
tedious when it has to be
one On millions of trees.
The average yield of the umbrella
vorked trees now thriving Justify
yer thousands of acres, is three
ounds per tree per year, with about
trees to an acre. Since trees go
ito tapping only after seven or eight
ears of growth, they are IL to 10
ears old before giving tAeir maxi
lum yield of 8 10 10 pounds per
ear.