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Researchers at the Extension Center are studying a dandelion whose roots could one day produce tires that can withstand the weight of a 747. Rich Roseberg, who oversees operations at Oregon State University’s Southern Oregon Research & Extension Center, and his associates are working with teams from Ohio State University and the University of Nebraska to produce a natural rubber suitable for aviation and Defense Department purposes from a dandelion native to Kazakhstan. If they’re successful, the Russian dandelion could help the U.S. ease its dependence on Asian rubber, Roseberg says. Chemists have labored a century attempting to produce synthetic rubber from petroleum to match natural rubber, Roseberg said. As a result, passenger car tires can be made of 25 percent natural rubber and 75 percent synthetic rubber, but an aircraft tire has to be 100 percent natural rubber. “Think about a tire that has been motionless at minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit and then it hits the runway,” he said. “In that instant, there’s not only the weight stress, but temperatures rising to several degrees at the moment of impact.” As a result, tire companies as varied as Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Cooper Tire & Rubber and Continental AG have backed rubber dandelion research. “We simply have to have a steady supply of natural rubber to produce aircraft tires,” Roseberg said. “You cannot land a modern airplane on tires made from synthetic rubber, made from petroleum, it has to be from natural rubber currently extracted from the Brazilian rubber tree.” The late agronomist Daryl Ehrensing spearheaded OSU’s effort until he died in 2009. Roseberg, who worked alongside Ehrensing, developed his interest in the rubber dandelion during his days on the OSU campus and later at the Klamath Falls research station. Roseberg said Brazilian rubber trees, which exude a sticky latex, were a mere curiosity until the 20th century, when people discovered there were lots of industrial applications. However, southeast Asia proved to be a far more suitable environment for commercial plantations than the Amazon. Through the early decades of the 20th century, the British Empire controlled the region and the plantations. When Joseph Stalin ascended to power in the late 1920s, he viewed Britain’s dominance of the rubber plant trade as an obstacle. Stalin charged his agricultural scientists to find a plant that grew, or could grow, within the borders of the Soviet Union in order to avoid dealing with British interests. “When Joseph Stalin gives you a directive like that, you succeed,” Roseberg said. “Or else.” Fortunately for the Russian agricultural scientists, there was a plant native to Kazakhstan — a land stretching from the Caspian Sea to China — that produces rubber in its roots virtually identical to rubber from Brazilian rubber trees. “There are only a handful of plants in nature that produce this compound,” Roseberg said. While the U.S. lacks climate and soil hospitable to the Brazilian rubber tree, there is a swath spanning the continent from Oregon, across the Great Plains and into the Northeast similar to the growing environment in Kazakhstan. During World War II, the U.S. rationed gas to reduce wear and tear on automobile tires as much as anything. The Emergency Rubber Project tried to improve synthetic rubber and recycle what was on hand. It also delved into researching Taraxacum koj-saghyz, the Latin name for the rubber dandelion. “We did a lot of things to figure out how to supply rubber for our aircraft and other things,” Roseberg said. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, alliances shifted and the U.S. had a new ally. American scientists were equipped with germ plasma to begin studying the Russian dandelion. For a three-year period, there were intensive studies to develop a wild plant into a commercial one at 100 locations across the country, including the Klamath Basin and Rogue Valley. “World War II ended, the supplies to natural rubber in Southeast Asia were re-established and all that research was dropped,” Roseberg said. For nearly 60 years, research went dormant. But with growing regional tensions in the Western Pacific, rubber once more became a research topic in 2004. Seeds were brought to Oregon State in 2004 and 2005, and the USDA followed with deliveries to Ohio State in 2007 and 2008. The root issues that rekindled domestic research, said Roseberg, are similar to the concerns in the middle of the 20th century: “Can we domesticate this plant into something that can help us escape dependency on southeast Asia rubber? Right now supplies are good, but political things can change. Dependence on this small geographic area is a concern.” OSU’s Russian dandelion patch covers roughly an acre — nothing close to the size needed for commercial production. Roseberg said it takes a 10th of an acre to produce one tire on an annual basis. The research centers on planting methods, water needs, fertilizer and how to harvest the crop. Harvesting equipment is similar to that used for root crops such as potatoes and sugar beets. Lest one worry about another invasive species in Oregon, scientists think the genetic makeup of the rubber dandelion is such that the native dandelion would win out in a pollen war. “The Russian dandelion and the common dandelion are two different species,” Roseberg said. “They look kinda similar superficially, but if you look at them more carefully, you can tell they are two different species. The genetics of the rubber dandelion are weaker than the common dandelion. If they are growing in proximity to one another, the common dandelion will take over and the Russian dandelion will go away. The genes will flow from the common dandelion to the Russian, and it all becomes common dandelion.” He anticipates current research will pave the way in the near future. “I think we will see commercial crops in five years,” Roseberg said. “It will probably never replace the volume we need to make the huge amount of tires and other things we make out of natural rubber.” Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at @ GregMTBusiness or www.facebook.com/greg.stiles.31 .