2004-2-9
This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
Sunflower plants grow tall and
produce a beautiful flower. The seeds are good to eat and produce a
high quality oil for cooking. But scientists in the United States
hope that sunflowers will also become known for their rubber.
The scientists are attempting to improve the quality and amount
of latex from sunflower plants. Latex is made of rubber particles,
water and other plant substances. It is a higher value product than
solid rubber.
The scientists believe that sunflowers could reduce America's
dependence on imported natural rubber and rubber made from oil
products. The United States imports more than one-million tons of
natural rubber each year.
Katrina Cornish is an expert on how plants produce rubber. She
works for the Agriculture Department in its Agricultural Research
Service office in Albany, California.
Katrina Cornish notes that more than two-thousand-five-hundred
kinds of plants produce natural latex. But she says few have the
qualities that scientists want. Most plants are too small or grow
too slowly. Others do not produce enough latex. Or the latex they
produce is not good enough.
Sunflowers are large and grow quickly. Currently, latex produced
from sunflowers is not good enough to be used to make products
because of the quality and amount. However, the scientists hope to
improve the situation in the future through genetic engineering.
Katrina Cornish and her team are experimenting with several
different kinds of sunflowers. She is working with scientists from
Colorado State University and Ohio State University. They are
interested in the kinds of plants that produce the highest amounts
of latex in stems and leaves. They are working with sunflower plants
that grow in northern areas where most of the American sunflower
crop is grown.
The scientists also work with other kinds of plants. One is the
guayule [why-YOU-lee]. This is a desert plant native to the American
Southwest. Katrina Cornish says Native Americans chewed the plant to
remove latex for rubber balls and other goods. She says early
automobile tires were made with guayule.
Last year a company working with her team opened a processing
center. Guayule products will be made for people who get a severe
health reaction to gloves and other goods made of other kinds of
natural latex.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by George
Grow. This is Steve Ember.