Rubber Tree Essay

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Research Background
1.0 Introduction
Hevea brasiliensis Müell.Arg. or the rubber tree is also known as the Para rubber tree and common rubber tree. This species belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae (Lusweti et al., 2011). The most essential feature of this tree is the white latex formed when the bark is cut or tapped. It is this white latex which is vulcanized to form rubber (Navie and Adkins, 2008). However, the rubber tree is prone to a wide range of foliar diseases, which causes yield losses of rubber latex. Colletotrichum leaf disease (CLD) is considered as one of the major foliar diseases that causes declining yields of rubber in Asia (Thambugala and Deshappriya, 2009).
According to Bailey and Jeger (1992), Colletotrichum is one of the most common and important genus of plant pathogenic fungi. At present, there have been about 900 species described or assigned to Colletotrichum. Based on perceived scientific and economic importance, this genus was recently voted the eighth most important group of plant pathogenic fungi in the world (Cannon et al., 2012). Almost all the crops grown throughout the world is susceptible to one or more species of Colletotrichum. This genus causes economically significant diseases of cereals and grasses, legumes, …show more content…

may provide helpful information to direct research towards optimizing the suitable fungicide to eradicate this species. Currently, anthracnose in Malaysia is mainly controlled by scheduled application of fungicides on seedlings in plantation area because of lack of knowledge of the factors affecting the disease severity under Malaysia’s conditions. Thus, the significance of this study will be to allow rubber tree planters to forecast a system that could regulate timing and amount of fungicide sprays on the seedlings and allow the application of more effective management strategies for the diseases caused by this fungus on the rubber trees in

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