Crop of the Week: Guayule

  Guayule (why-YOU-lee) is a woody plant that thrives in the deserts of the U.S. Southwest and Mexico. Clean new technologies make it possible to extract natural rubber, latex, ethanol, non-toxic adhesives and other specialty chemicals from guayule.

  Guayule has been known as a source of rubber since the pre-Columbian times when Indians of Mexico used it to form balls for their games. More than 2,000 species of plants can produce rubber, but guayule (Parthenium argentatum) is the only one other than the rubber tree that has had commercial success, dating to the first decade of the 20th century when guayule rubber producers operated along the U.S.-Mexican border.

  Though guayule was commercially grown in the past during World War II when rubber imports from Southeast Asia were cut off, its resurgence in popularity came about during the 1980s AIDS crisis when a surge in rubber-glove usage revealed how many people were allergic to latex. Guayule-based rubber contains none of the proteins that cause latex allergies.

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

  Guayule acreage in Yuma currently ranges from 50 to about 100 acres.

  Research by the USDA and private industry is finding uses for the 85 to 90 percent of the guayule shrub that remains after latex extraction. For example, the recent study showed the guayule fibers to contain a type of natural pesticide to termites and, in addition, to be anti-fungal.

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Source: Kurt Nolte is an agriculture agent and Yuma County Cooperative Extension director. He can be reached at knolte@cals.arizona.edu or 726-3904.