Plantwatch: Russian dandelion offers solution to global rubber shortage

Scientists are returning to a wartime solution that may be more sustainable than the traditional rubber treeThere is a global shortage of natural rubber and dandelions may be coming to the rescue. In the second world war there was such a severe shortage of rubber that the Allies used the Russian dandelion, Taraxacum koksaghyz, from Kazakhstan. Soviet scientists found the dandelion roots produced enough white milky latex to make natural rubber, but when the war ended producers returned to the tra