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 The reaction is understandable, given most people regard the
yellow flowers as pesky intruders in their gardens rather than a
promising source of rubber for tires.
"People just think of it as a horrible weed and ask how can you get
enough material for tires from just a small root," she said.
Her research team is competing with others across the world to breed
a type of dandelion native to Kazakhstan whose taproot yields a
milky fluid with tire-grade rubber particles in it.
Global tire makers such as industry leader Bridgestone Corp <5108.T>
and No.4 player Continental AG <CONG.DE> believe they are in for
rich pickings and are backing such research to the tune of millions
of dollars.
Early signs are good. A small-scale trial by a U.S. research team
found the dandelions delivered per-hectare rubber yields on a par
with the best rubber-tree plantations in tropical Asia.
So within a decade, rather than being a backyard bane like their
wild cousins, the new flowers might be seen in neat rows in hundreds
of thousands of acres across Europe and the United States, where
they can grow even in poor soil.
And they could have some interesting modifications. For instance,
German researchers have bred the plants to grow to up to a foot (30
cm) in height, dwarfing many of their backyard cousins. They are
also developing the dandelions with upright rather than flat-growing
leaves - just so harvesting machines have something to grab on to.
The tire industry, which consumes about two-thirds of the world's
natural rubber, has long felt uneasy about its complete reliance on
rubber-tree tapping in a handful of Southeast Asian nations which
account for most of the $25 billion in annual natural-rubber output.
More than 100 years since the invention of synthetic rubber from
petrochemicals, global road and air traffic still depends on the
unique properties of plant-based rubber - which to date cannot be
replicated by the man-made material.
Passenger car tires need to have 10-40 percent natural rubber
content to allow them to stay flexible at low temperatures and to
keep tiny cracks from growing. Truck and aircraft tires need an even
higher percentage.
FUNGUS FEARS
Tire makers' worst fear is that an uncontrollable fungus that has
choked all attempts to run plantations in Brazil - where the rubber
tree originates - might one day wreak havoc in Southeast Asia.
The volatility of the rubber market has added urgency to the search
for alternative crops. Rubber prices surged to a record high of more
than $6 per kg in early 2011 - when weather-related supply shortages
in Southeast Asia coincided with strong demand growth and
speculative rubber traders betting on further gains.
But prices slumped to multi-year lows of $2 this year on
expectations of slowing economic growth in China, the world's
largest rubber market.
The volatility has been compounded by the fact that it takes about
seven years to develop a new plantation and, during this development
process, farmers tend to react to price changes by increasing or
cutting their acreage.
Chuck Yurkovich, head of research and development at Cooper Tire &
Rubber Co <CTB.N>, which collaborates with Bridgestone in an
Ohio-based dandelion project, said: "We would hopefully have a
steady supply of a good natural rubber substitute at consistent
prices to take us out of the wild swing in cost."
Any impact on prices would have huge implications for tire firms.
Natural rubber accounted for about a third of raw material costs at
the world's second-largest tire maker Michelin <MICP.PA> last year,
for example, and almost a quarter at smaller peer Pirelli <PECI.MI>,
say analysts at Credit Suisse.
Another concern about the current market is that rubber-supplying
countries, led by Thailand and Indonesia, will not have the acreage
to keep up with long-term growth in tire demand. Credit Suisse
analysts put demand growth rates at close to 4 percent annually over
the next four years.
HISTORY LESSON
Tire makers took a lesson from history in the search for a
home-grown feedstock.
When trade with Asia collapsed during the Second World War, the
Kazakh dandelion, also called Russian dandelion, was cultivated in
the United States, Europe and Soviet Union for an emergency supply
of rubber despite meager yields.
After the war, however, trade links were restored and companies
returned to the more cost-efficient Asian plantations.
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It has only been in recent years that dandelions have been
re-examined, given the fungus fears and price volatility and also
advances in bioengineering that many believe have made the flowers
an economically viable source of rubber.
The rediscovery began around 2007, when a team of researchers at
Ohio State University started exploring dandelion and guayule, a
desert shrub native to the southwest United States and Mexico. They
were joined by Bridgestone and Cooper Tire in a project called
PENRA. An EU-backed rubber initiative based in the Netherlands
followed suit in 2008 and van der Meer's follow-up project has
India's Apollo Tyres Ltd <APLO.NS> and Czech tractor tire maker
Mitas a.s. as commercial partners. There is also a German group
supported by Continental AG.
The U.S. researchers are pursuing both genetic modification and
conventional breeding to domesticate the wild flower, while their
European counterparts are focusing on the latter, claiming that
modern precision breeding can do the job.
"The sugar beet gives you a good idea of what is possible. The
taproot is enormous but if you look at the wild ancestor, the
beetroot is only as thick as your finger," van der Meer said.
Working at the Wageningen university and research center, she
coordinates the EU project, known as DRIVE4EU.
All contenders in the dandelion quest say that getting the farming
right is as important as mastering the genetics. The challenges
start with putting the seeds into the ground and they don't stop
there.
"We had to find out that lots of things eat dandelions seeds in the
field - ants, earthworms, mice," said Katrina Cornish, the Ohio
team's research director.
One way to try to prevent this is to put a protective cover of clay
around the seeds. Another option is to scatter sterilized Kentucky
bluegrass seeds along with the dandelion seeds to tempt predators
into eating them instead.
GRIND TO PULP
At the end of the seven-year U.S. program in 2020, Cornish's team
aims to have drawn up a detailed business plan and beginners' guide
for future dandelion farmers, complete with instructions on how to
fertilize, irrigate and harvest.
In a small plot trial, her team says it has achieved what would be
annual per-hectare yields of more than 1,500 kg of rubber with just
the second generation of dandelions, on a level with the best Asian
tree plantations.
But that was under ideal conditions and has yet to be replicated on
a farm-size scale. Her team is now in the process of harvesting
eight acres of new dandelions planted last year.
In Germany, lead researcher Dirk Pruefer with the university of
Muenster and state-backed research institute Fraunhofer, said the
breeders with his project had achieved yields of up to 500 kg per
hectare in the open field and are pushing for 1,000 kg.
Pruefer says calculations have shown that with the targeted yield of
about 1,000 kg, land the size of Austria would be required to meet
the entire global demand for natural rubber just from dandelions.
But far from hoping that the rubber tree can be replaced, tire
makers would be happy with even a complementary source.
The dandelion researchers are tight-lipped when it comes to
disclosing how they process the harvest into a usable feedstock. One
approach is to cut off the taproots and grind them into a pulp with
the addition of some water. Further processing steps yield solid
blocks of natural rubber.
The experimental rubber was shown on the test track to be on par
with conventional natural rubber but it will take some more years of
development even after the ongoing projects end before the first
dandelion tires come to market.
The University of Ohio's Cornish said she sees no shortage of
farmers ready to seize the opportunity in the U.S. state. The
typical reaction to her work is - "When can I start growing it?"
(Editing by Pravin Char)
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