Choosing your base or your land for the plantation is not that easy. Before you choose the land that you need, you have to check what kind of environmental condition is suitable for planting rubber plants (Hevea Brasiliensis).
Hevea Brasiliensis or rubber plant requirements to survive:
Planted around 0-400m above sea level with the maximum slope of 45°
Deep, well drained loamy soil. Loamy soil has more nutrients and it is more humus than sandy soils, and others. It also retains water.
It needs to be on the plateau so it does not need to tolerate flooding.
It can stay on land of pH 4-8 which is acidic and slightly alkaline.
It needs some legumes (groundcover):
To control the weeds.
To create less competition on the land.
Produces more nitrogen which makes nitrogen not a limited factor.
Keeping soil moist.
Requires annual rainfall of 1500-4000mm/year, evenly throughout the year best will be between 2500-4000mm with 100-150 rainy days per year.
The best temperature for this tree is between 20°C-27°C.
Rubber plantation should be connected in one area and to scattered. The unification of these areas meant for the young plants are easily controlled.
After attaining this knowledge you will be able to look for the suitable place to plant the Hevea Brasiliensis. The list above will be able to let you choose the place and survey the location for the plantation.
Choosing Plant
Types of rubber
Before choosing a plant, there are other things you need to know. These things are what you call 2 types of rubber. These 2 types are the Natural rubber and the Synthetic Rubber.
Synthetic Rubber is used frequently compared to natural rubber. This is because it has more types of chemical and the price remains stable. It rarely causes any problems sending or supplying consumers. Even though the total production of natural rubber is lower compared to synthetic rubber, natural rubber cannot be replaced by synthetic rubber. Natural rubber has its own excellence that cannot be surpassed by synthetic rubber.
There are more advantages of the natural rubber:
It has perfect resilience and elasticity.
It has good plasticity that it simplifies the process.
Low heat power.
High groove cracking resistance.
There are also other factors that make synthetic rubber special:
Resistance to various types of chemical.
Stable Price.
Rarely has any problems sending or supplying to consumers.
The points above are the things that natural rubber lacks. The price and supply of natural rubber will always change, and sometimes it changes turbulently. This turbulent change of price damages the market and troubles the producers. Sometimes because of the release of new regulations from the producer’s government the international market will be affected.
Even though natural rubbers have some weakness in the chemical side, it has a good market share. These market shares are:
Tyre Industry – tyre uses more natural rubber, even though it mixes with synthetic rubber.
Air Plane Industry – almost all of the raw materials of airplane is made put of natural rubber.
Production ratio of Natural rubber and Synthetic rubber is 1 to 2. However the total consumption of both is almost the same.