Herringbone tapping and Hevea rubber plantations
Sangrado en espiga y plantación del caucho Hevea
- Date
- 1888-1897 · confidence medium
- Place
- Singapore Botanic Gardens, Singapore
- Credited to
- Henry Nicholas Ridley
- People
- 👤 Henry Nicholas Ridley1855–1956
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A herringbone tapping method that draws latex from the rubber tree continuously without killing it, developed with seedlings sent from Kew. It made large-scale plantation growing viable in Malaya and Indonesia, which soon overtook wild Amazonian rubber.
Hevea brasiliensis seeds were smuggled out of Brazil by Henry Wickham in 1876.
What it led to
- rubber plantations in Malaya and Indonesia
- cheap rubber for tyres and the car industry
- the end of the Amazonian rubber boom