Perspective: Sunflowers seek their due, Meyer says
Bruce Meyer
From my early days at
Rubber & Plastics News, there has been much written about the research being done to find a viable alternative for natural rubber.
My former colleague Miles Moore, who retired a year ago, wrote countless stories about the work done with guayule, the shrub that thrives in the Southwest and Mexico. Back then, I wondered more about the way it was pronounced than whether someday it could become a supplier of rubber on a commercially viable scale.
In more recent years, though, work toward finding an alternative NR supply has gotten more serious, to the point that there truly is a spot on the horizon where such dreams may indeed become a reality. Most of the major tiremakers have been involved with the research, as have a number of independent entities. There has, of course, been more study into guayule, along with a lot of investment into the possibilities involving Russian dandelions.
Published March 11, 2021 at 4:20 PM CST Listen Provided by Edison Agrosciences St. Louis based Edison Agrosciences say sunflowers are capable of becoming the world’s next best source of natural rubber.
Manufacturers who depend on rubber for their product typically source the rubber from Asia, where most of the world’s natural rubber is harvested. But an 8-year-old St. Louis company wants to change that.
“The world’s supply of natural rubber is at risk,” said David Woodburn, the CEO of Edison Agrosciences. “Ninety percent of it or so comes from Southeast Asia … not only from the same plant species, but really, clones of [the] exact same trees. So once you have that type of concentration, pests whether it be disease or insects if they take hold, things can move fast.”