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We are working to develop a domestic natural rubber crop in Ohio and for the U.S.

Natural rubber is a vital resource for any developed country and is used in over 40,000 commercial products. By 2020 the USA may suffer a supply shortfall of 1.5 million metric tons of imported natural rubber. While the use of synthetic rubber has surpassed natural rubber in quantity, there are particular properties and high-performance applications that make natural rubber irreplaceable by synthetic rubber.

Cornish Lab Group is a joint program comprised of both Hort & Crop and Ag Engineering PI's and graduate students.

Did you know............. Cornish Lab hand planted approximately 61 miles of Buckeye Gold in 2013. Thats a lot of dandelions!

OSU's Rubber Pilot Plant produces high quality rubber for the tire industry and medical quality latex hypoallergenic gloves.

 

 

News

  1. Rubber Industry's Auto Suppliers Find Inspiration in Unlikely Places

    Oct 1, 2019

    Sometime in the mid-1990s, when Katrina Cornish was living in California and working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she saw a load of freshly picked tomatoes in a hopper being transported from a farm on the back of a truck.  Cornish, who has a doctorate in plant biology from the University of Birmingham in England, didn't view that load of tomatoes as most people would.

  2. Natural Rubber Biosecurity and Biodiversification

    Jul 29, 2019

    Natural rubber is an extremely important, agricultural resource vital to all modern economies. It is curiously underappreciated because many people assume that all rubber is synthetic. However, the total rubber market is about 45 % natural rubber because synthetic rubber, which is made from fossil reserves, cannot replace natural rubber in many applications.  Click here to read more.

  3. Katrina Cornish receives BioEnvironmental Polymer Society Lifetime Achievement Award

    Jun 19, 2019

    Katrina Cornish, an Ohio Research Scholar and Endowed Chair in Bio-based Emergent Materials at the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES), recently received the BioEnvironmental Polymer Society Lifetime Achievement Award for scientific excellence and impact in the field.  Click here to read more!

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