Rubber Tree Clone Breed Identification Based on Latex Spectrum Properties

Abstract

The phenomenon of rubber consumption in Malaysia has been increased parallel with the world demand. Hence, it is necessary for the cultivators to gain some knowledge for differentiating various rubber tree clone breed which may give them high latex yield after 5 years or more of planting. This paper discusses the identification of several rubber tree clones breed based on the best percentage of the reflectance wavelength obtained from the respected latex. In this work, there were three selected rubber tree clones which are RRIM 2025, PB 355 and PB 350 suggested by Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia (RRIM) will undergo a preliminary analysis on the significant information of spectrum properties acquired from the latex. A hundred of latex samples have been collected from each clone and extracted the optical measurements of the primary color spectrum (Red, Green and Blue) using spectrometer. The next step is to analyze the acquired information based on its reflectance wavelength with respect to clones and at the end it will be evaluated statistically. As a result, there were two out of three clones could be discriminated between each other with refer to the green wavelength (573nm).