• Crop Management
• Processing

Processing

• Crop Collection
• Latex preservation and concentration

Crop Collection

The main crop from a rubber plantation is latex, a milky white dispersion of rubber in water, which is harvested by the tapping process.  Two to three hours after tapping, the latex collected in the cup is transferred to a clean bucket.  About 70-80 per cent of the crop from a rubber plantation is in the form of latex.

The latex which gets solidified in the tapping panel (tree lace) and the collection cups (cup lump) also form part of the crop and are collected by the tapper in a basket just prior to tapping. The latex spilt and/or overflowed to the ground (earth scrap) when gets dried up is also collected as scrap once in a month. These are collectively called field coagulum.

Latex and field coagulum are highly susceptible to bacterial action and therefore it is essential to process these into forms that will allow safe storage and marketing.

General composition of latex

Latex can be processed into any of the following forms

1.Preserved field latex and latex concentrate
2.Sheet rubber
3.Block rubber
4.Crepe rubber

Field coagulum can be processed only into crepe rubber or block rubber.

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