Industrial plantation

Nutrient Cycling in Industrial Plantations of Fast- Growing Exotics the Jari Project... 

Natural rubber can be obtained from the sap of a number of plants and trees, the most common source is the Hevea brasiliensis tree. Although natural rubber was known in Central and South America before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, the first use as an adhesive was established in a patent dated in 1891. As rubber became an important part of the industrial revolution, the rubber adhesives market grew in importance. To comply with the increasing demand on natural rubber materials, plantations of Hevea brasiliensis trees were established in southeast Asia in the early 20th Century, mainly to supply the demand from the automobile industry. 

The Amazon rubber industry collapsed almost overnight. In 1876 the English botanist Henry Wickham shipped 70,000 Hevea seeds to the Royal Botanic Gardens in London. New strains of Hevea were developed that produced three to four times as much mbber and were more disease-resistant than their wild Amazonian cousins. Soon, seedlings were sent to Malaya, Java, and other islands of the East Indies. Thirty-five years later, rubber plantations on these islands took control of the industry. 

The rabber industry changed again when the Japanese captured the East Indian rubber plantations during World War n. The resulting shortage of rabber prompted an intensive research program to produce synthetic rubber. Today, more than 2 million tons of synthetic rabber is produced each year in the United States. Natural rubber is still produced in the tropics, but its importance pales compared to the glory days of the Brazilian rabber plantations. 

Sigatoka, like Panama wilt, is equally destructive to the banana industry. Plants attacked by the organism will not produce marketable fruit and the plantation will eventually die out. First recognized in Java in 1903, it became serious in 1910 when it reduced Fiji exports from 1,300,000 stems to 100,000 within a few years. First infections appeared in Honduras in August of 1935 and eliminated production from 22,000 acres within 16 months. 

Harvesting operations are moving away from virgin forests, and there is an increasing reliance upon plantations as a source of industrial timber, although the development of such plantations is relatively recent. According to the FAO (2001), half of all established plantations are less than 20 years old. It is predicted that future increases in wood demand will be met largely from plantations. 

As the availability of naturally durable species has declined, the industry has turned to softwoods, and increasingly to softwoods from managed forests or plantations. In order to achieve acceptable longevity under service conditions, it has been necessary to use preservatives to prevent biological attack. Such preservatives have tended to rely upon broad-spectmm biocidal activity and have become very common, particularly for exterior applications. 

The onset of World War II caused major expansion and teehnology innovation in the petroleum and petroehemieal industries, with major inereases in demands for (1) branched aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, (2) high-purity toluene, (3) butadiene, and (4) nylon. What uses produeed eaeh of these demands [Some hints The jet engine was important only after 1950, mbber plantations were loeated in Malaysia, and eotton becomes weak and mildews when wet.]... 

The flavor and fragrance industry has expanded so much that the plants required to supply the raw materials are now grown on a very large scale. Examples are the peppermint and spearmint plantations in the United States, the lavandin plantations in southern France and the cornmint plantations in China and India. 

The major crops for agrochemical use are cotton, rice, maize, vegetables and top fruit for insecticides small grain cereals, rice, vines and top fruit for fungicides, and maize, soybeans, small grain cereals, rice, industrial weed control, plantations and orchards for herbicides. Other crops that may be of interest include sugar beet, oil-seed rape, potatoes and citrus dependent upon your company s presence in these crops. 

Next, when considering the use of renewable resources, one must make note of the competing uses for land and the consequent impact on the environment, such as the competition between food production and industrial use for agricultural land, as exemplified by the growing biofuels industry or the deforestation of land for plantations of palm oil trees. This is a complex area where there is on-going national and international debate and where there are no easy answers. 

The development of brown color in sugar during storage is of the oldest problems in the sugar industry. In Taiwan, about 400,000 tons of plantation white sugar from sugar cane are... 

Chemical weed control in sugarcane may have started in Hawaii. Sodium arsenite was first used in rubber plantations in 1913, but its most lasting impacts occurred in the sugar industry. At that time the Hawaiian industry was spending 750000 to 1 million annually for hand hoeing, but growers learned that they could apply sodium arsenite at 5.5kg/ha in 380L of water and achieve weed control at one-fourth the cost. 

The concept of controlling herbaceous weeds in pine plantations is relatively new. In most cases it is not necessary in order to establish a pine stand although early growth studies recently indicate that weed control can be very beneficial. As a result, herbicide technology for this purpose is just beginning to develop. More effective herbicides and application methods are currently being assessed through various university and industrial research efforts. 

---