When Rubber Hit the Salinas Valley

Salinas, California. Intercontinental Rubber Producers. Two-year-old guayule shrubs. Russell Lee, 1941.
Salinas, California. Intercontinental Rubber Producers. Two-year-old guayule shrubs. Russell Lee, 1941.

Guayule (Parthenium_argentatum) plants were grown in Salinas Valley, California from 1926 through 1945 as a source of rubber. A Mexican desert shrub with 20% pure, harvestable-rubber, the Intercontinental Rubber Company (ICRC) bred the plant to double its rubber content. In 1926, ICRC set up large scale growing operations and a processing plant in Salinas Valley. They had eight thousand acres of guayule under cultivation with up to five tons of guayule rubber made daily.
During WWII Americans faced a shortage of rubber and Japan controlled 90% of the supplies. In order to assure adequate rubber supplies domestically, the US Government passed the Emergency Rubber Project Act in 1942 and took over ICRC’s operations in Salinas. The US Forest Service directed what was known as the “Guayule Rubber Project.” Guayule nurseries were established in Bakersfield, Oceanside, and Indio, California and in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. By 1944, 32,000 acres of guayule were in cultivation and processed in Salinas.

Two-year-old guayule plants. At two years, the guayule contains about nine percent rubber of dry weight. Russell Lee, 1941.
Two-year-old guayule plants. At two years, the guayule contains about nine percent rubber of dry weight. Russell Lee, 1941.
Four-year-old guayule plants, Salinas California. Russell Lee, 1941.
Four-year-old guayule plants, Salinas California. An acre of mature shrubs will yield from 1800 to 2500 pounds of rubber. Russell Lee, 1941.

The end of World War II and improved production of synthetic rubber spelled the end of the Guayule Rubber Project in the Salinas Valley. The land was turned over to the production of other crops.

Following the oil crisis of the 1970s, prices of both natural and synthetic rubber skyrocketed. Congress approved the Native Latex Act of 1978 to again explore domestic rubber production based on guayule.The AIDs epidemic of the 1980s created greater need for latex products and this was compounded in the 1990s when thousands of healthcare workers developed allergies to tropical latex; sixteen died from anaphylactic reactions. It turns out latex from guayule is hypoallergenic and does not cause allergic reactions. Today companies are again growing guayule in the Southwest US as well as internationally to commercially extract natural rubber for medical devices and specialty consumer products. It is also being explored for use as a biofuel.

These photos are part of the US Governments New Deal Photos taken from 1935 to 1945. Thanks to http://photogrammar.yale.edu/ for making the collection easy to sort through and download!



  1. Sources Used

About The Author

I really enjoy field trips. I love being in a cool place and having someone tell me about it. The problem is, you can’t always find a professor or park ranger-type to tell you all they know about the local rocks, plants, and history. So I decided to combine my love of things natural with mobile technology.

Related posts

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *