This is the VOA SpecialEnglish AGRICULTURE REPORT.
Many farmers grow sunflower plants. The tall plants producebeautiful flowers and seeds that are good to eat. They also producea high quality oil for cooking.
American scientists are hopingthat sunflowers soon will become known for their rubber. Thescientists are attempting to improve the quality and amount of latexfrom sunflower plants. Latex is made of rubber particles, water andother plant substances. It is a higher value product than solidrubber.
The scientists believe that sunflowers could reduce America’sdependence on imported natural rubber and rubber made from oilproducts. The United States imports more than one-million tons ofnatural rubber each year. The Department of Agriculture says therubber imports cost about one-thousand-million dollars a year.
Katrina Cornish is an expert on how plants produce rubber. Sheworks with the United States government’s Agricultural ResearchService office in Albany, California.
Mizz Cornish notes that more than two-thousand-five-hundred kindsof plants produce natural latex. However, she says that few of theplants have the qualities that scientists want. Most plants are toosmall or grow too slowly. Others do not produce enough latex, or thelatex they produce is not good enough.
Mizz Cornish says sunflowers are large and grow quickly.Currently, the quality and amount of latex produced from sunflowersis not good enough to be used to make products. However, scientistsexpect to improve it through methods of genetic engineering.
Mizz Cornish and her team are experimenting with severaldifferent kinds of sunflowers. She is working with scientists fromColorado State University and Oregon State University. They areinterested in the kinds of plants that produce the highest amountsof latex in stems and leaves. They are working with sunflower plantsthat grow in northern areas where most of the American sunflowercrop is grown.
Mizz Cornish plans to add laboratory-made genes for latexproduction to sunflower tissue. Next, she will test the tissue tofind out if the new genes are working inside the sunflower’s cells.Later tests will identify the genetically engineered plants thatproduce the highest amounts of the best quality latex.
This VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT was written by GeorgeGrow.