The project aims to develop new crops for the production and exploitation of natural rubber and latex in the European Union. 

The EU-PEARLS project has a budget of 7.7 million Euros, 5.6 million of which will be covered by EU-funding and the balance by non-EU partners. It officially began in April and is set to run through 2012.

A press release from the EU-PEARLS program included the following:

“Natural rubber is a unique and valuable raw material that is essential to industry, medicine, personal care, and transportation. In many of these applications it cannot be replaced by synthetic – petroleum – based materials. Currently, its major source is the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis. Increased worldwide demand for natural rubber and latex, a fungal disease potentially capable of destroying Hevea brasiliensis plantations in South-East Asia, and allergies to Hevea brasiliensis latex, are important drivers to develop alternative – domestic sources of latex and natural rubber, the two most promising of which are the North-American shrub Parthenium argentatum (guayule) and Taraxacum koksaghyz (Russian dandelion).

 

“The EU-PEARLS Consortium links stakeholders in the EU and elsewhere in the development, exploitation and sustainable use of these plants, aiming to establish complete new value creation chains.

“The EU-PEARLS project includes the collection and creation of new germplasm, and research into the biochemistry and genetics of rubber biosynthesis, breeding and agronomy of guayule and Russian dandelion, processing of the crops, and product development. Analysis of the rubber biosynthetic pathway in these crops, aided by mapping of genes involved in rubber biosynthesis, will help to identify potential bottlenecks, and accelerate conventional breeding for commercially-viable rubber yields. Helper organisms will include Arabidopsis thaliana and Baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Improved plants will be tested for efficient growth and rubber production in the field under different climatic and edaphic conditions in Europe. In parallel, methods to process the plants, and harvest the latex and rubber will be evaluated and optimised. Furthermore, the technical performance and economic potential of rubber extracted from these plants will be evaluated by producing specific prototypes, such as surgical gloves and tires.

“The EU-PEARLS consortium is a collaborative network of European research organisations and industrial participants, with the necessary scientific and administrative expertise and cross-disciplinary experience to meet the project objectives, which include establishment of the two new crop plants and the required processing industry. Furthermore, the potential economic, environmental and societal effects in terms of jobs, water and land requirements, and pollution will be investigated.”

For further information, please contact

Dr. Hans Mooibroek

EU-PEARLS Coordinator
Wageningen UR
Agrotechnology & Food Sciences Group - Biobased Products, Department of Bioconversion
P.O.Box 17
NL-6700 AA Wageningen
Bornsesteeg 59 (Bldg 118; Atrium)
NL-6708 PD Wageningen
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-(0)317-480214
Reception Desk: +31-(0)317-480084
Fax: +31-(0)317-483011
E-mail: hans.mooibroek@wur.nl

If you live in the Los Angeles area and want to learn more about guayule’s history in WWII as a source of natural rubber, attend this October 18 event. Frank Akira Kageyama will speak about the Guayule Rubber Project at Manzanar, one of ten concentration camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisioned during World War II.

Kageyama, who is the brother of Mary Kageyama Nomura, known as the “Songbird of Manzanar,” was among a group of several dozen Japanese American chemists, horticulturists, and machinists at Manzanar, who made a unique contribution to America’s war effort during World War II, despite being imprisoned at Manzanar. To alleviate America’s wartime rubber shortage, they worked under the guidance of Dr. Robert Emerson, in partnership with the California Institute of Technology, to develop methods of cultivating, harvesting, and extracting rubber from guayule, a desert shrub native to Northern Mexico and Southwestern Texas.

Kageyama, 92, is one of the few remaining members of the guayule project. After the war, he and Hugh Anderson, the business manager for the project, traveled the world promoting the production of guayule as an alternative source of natural rubber.

The event is free and open to the public. The event will be held on Saturday October 18, at 1:00 PM, at Merit Park Recreation Hall, 58 Merit Park Drive, Gardena, California, 90247-3840 (parking is on 158th Street or at Pacific Square, a short walk to the Recreation Hall on Merit Park Drive).

To RSVP or for more information, please call Louise Sakamoto at (310) 327-3169 or send e-mail to lsakamoto@sbcglobal.net.

The Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops (AAIC), an international, nonprofit educational and scientific organization, held its

During the closing banquet and awards ceremony, Katrina Cornish, PhD, Senior Vice President, Research & Development at Yulex Corporation was honored with the AAIC’s 2008 Outstanding Researcher Award. Dr. Cornish is the world’s leading scientific expert on guayule and its natural rubber and resins.

Nine presentations were made on topics related to Natural Rubber and Resins during the conference, including presentations by Dr. Cornish recapping research into the effects of temperature on guayule tissue prior to rubber and resin extraction.

Dr. Cornish has over 120 patents and publications (not including abstracts), of which more than 95 are related to rubber biosynthesis and production. Amongst her numerous awards, her guayule latex development was recognized by CONNECT and received the 2005 Most Innovative New Product Award presented to Yulex for Yulex™ latex in the Life Sciences – Medical Devices & Diagnostics category. In 2004, Dr. Cornish received the Good Housekeeping Award for Women in Government in recognition of her inspired leadership and proving that good government can change our lives. In 2002, she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and won a presidential award from the American Chemical Society. She was also honored with the USDA’s Scientist of the Year Award for Outstanding Senior Research Scientist in 1998.

“Clean new technologies make it possible to extract natural rubber, latex, ethanol, non-toxic adhesives and other specialty chemicals from guayule….

Yulex Corp. has been positioning Arizona as the epicenter of a new domestic industry based on guayule.”

According to the article, an estimated 50 to 100 acres of guayule are grown in the Yuma area, which is one of several agricultural districts in Arizona producing guayule for Yulex Corporation.

The hospital did not have a latex policy in place at that time.

“Recent rubber price increases generally have stuck because customers really don’t have any other choices, said Bill Hyde, director of C4 olefins and elastomers for Houston-based Chemical Marketing Associates Inc.

Producers have been able to push through some substantial increases, and no one rubber producer is exposed more than another because they’re all exposed to cost-push and feedstock limitation issues, he said.

While there is more natural rubber available compared to synthetic rubber—which is experiencing some record highs in pricing—NR prices are actually higher, Hyde said. With the tightness of supply in North America, importing SBR would seem to be a viable alternative, except that supply in regions like Asia is even tighter and the prices are higher.

In the case of highly engineered rubber products, where the specifications are tight, manufacturers really can’t move back and forth on materials, Hyde said.

“There’s a widespread shortage of synthetic rubber,” he said. “Polybutadiene and SBR producers have been allocating 50-90 percent of contract levels since February here in the U.S. In the short term, there aren’t a lot of other options.””

Other crops that made the cut are: algae and its production of biofuels, corn and its ability to produce plastic, cockleburs and velcro derived from the plant, and the lotus plant the Lotus Effect.

• Manufacturers, medical institutions, shippers, and the end-user are all suffering from the rising costs and reduced availability of raw materials. Speculators have now found rubber so are having the same undesirable affect as they have had on petroleum.
• An economist from the International Rubber Study Group indicated a serious but temporary shortfall in rubber and latex supplies will start in 2010. During this time, prices will rise even further.
• On average, the EU and USA use approximately 100 gloves per person per year.
• Attendees were excited about guayule latex and manufacturing gloves in the U.S.