A study of different tapping times on latex production in smallholder rubber fields in Moneragala District in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Harvesting latex from rubber trees at different times in the early hours of the day or so-called night tapping has led to more time to extract latex from trees and saves time for the tapper to engage in other farm activities during the daytime in non-traditional areas in Sri Lanka. A night tapping trial was conducted during the 2017-2018 period for one year in Moneragala District (IL1c) to investigate whether night tapping is advantageous for farmers to obtain higher latex yields from their fields. In this study, two smallholder rubber fields were selected in Moneragala District, and trees were tapped at S/2 d2 tapping system without rain guards. For each starting time, 10 trees were allocated for the collection of latex in each treatment, and treatments were set up at five different time intervals i.e., 1.30, 2.30, 3.30, 4.30, and 5.00 for field 1 and from 1.00 am to 5.00 am hourly intervals for field 2. Tapping time at 5.00 am was considered as the control treatment for both fields as the normal tapping time in Moneragala. A forehead-mounted torch was used by each tapper to illuminate the tapping cut. Results revealed that there was a variation in latex yield tapped from 1.00 am to 5.00 am in both fields. The present trial indicated that the latex yields are given at different tapping times before 4.30 am comparatively low in pre-dawn tapping.

Effect of seed quantity on growth performance of rubber seedling plants and quality of planting material

“…The annual total seed requirement of the country for establishment of rubber nurseries is around 12 million for the smooth functioning of rubber nurseries rubber nurseries. But, it has been reported that only 25% of the seeds sown in the germination bed produces vigorous root stocks (Seneviratne, 1997). Rubber seeds are collected from rubber fields with the onset of seed fall.…”