Distinguished Service: Guayule’s Role in World War II
During World War II, trading and exchange with Southeast Asia was stifled and many Americans were required to ration items that were in short supply. Rubber was one such item and, in fact, was the first non-food item required to be rationed.
According to author and guayule scholar Mark R. Finlay, as early as 1910, the US was already importing over 79,000 pounds of rubber annually. During WWII when rubber supplies were minimal, heavy public pressure on politicians made finding a new source of rubber a top priority for officials looking to maintain support for the war.
1942: Newly-seeded guayule nursery beds in Salinas, California. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
Unfortunately, rubber trees, or Hevea brasiliensis, don’t just grow anywhere. Hevea trees require a very specific tropical climate to flourish, for which the U.S. is unsuitable. Scientists looked to guayule, which is native to the U.S. southwest, for a solution. The U.S. government developed an emergency rubber project with a budget of $40 million ($528 million adjusted to 2009 dollar value) and planned to grow 32,000 acres of guayule to meet domestic consumer needs.
Before commercial-scale guayule production farms were established, the war ended and with it so did the embargo on rubber from Southeast Asia. At the end of the war in 1945, projects to commercialize guayule were abandoned. With old rubber supplies restored, environmental responsibility a low national priority and Hevea rubber imports fairly cheap to import at the time, the United States resumed its dependence on a foreign supply of latex. Simultaneously, synthetic rubber, a petroleum byproduct, was introduced during this period and began to grow in popularity.
But as society became more environmentally conscious and the comparative advantage of importing rubber began to decline, there was resurgence in the desire to find a domestic supply of natural rubber. Building off the research began during the WWII era, and thanks to innovative guayule breeding programs and technological developments, today guayule is recognized as a natural, domestic source for rubber latex production on a commercial scale. Guayule is indigenous to the southwest United States and doesn’t compete with other crops for land as it flourishes in a climate where few other industrial crops can grow. Highly sustainable, guayule requires less water than most industrial crops, such as cotton, and produces tarpene resins, which acts like a natural pesticide.
Research and development of guayule as a commercial crop was jumpstarted during WWII out of necessity. Today, it’s the need to source materials that are safe for the environment and for latex allergy sufferers that is driving the expansion of guayule rubber latex research and product development. Yulex Corporation has taken the work WWII era agriculturalists and industrialists started and advanced it far beyond what was conceivable 60 years ago to develop a sustainable, all-natural domestic rubber source.
