They were trying this out in 1942. WW2 cut off the supplies of natural rubber and they were still trying to work out synthetic rubber. Gas rationing during WW2 was admitted to be more about saving rubber than gas. 35 mph speed limit nationwide would supposedly make tires last twice as long. Tire rationing. Needed authorization to even get recaps. Stealing a tire was a felony in DC.
June 1942. Congress passed $8,835,000 for planting guayule.
(That’s $136,765,000 in today’s money). 50,000 acres of plant production and 500 acres of seed production.
Rubber wasn't coming from Indonesia and Malaya anymore, but we could still get it from Brazil (if we could get it past the German submarines, which also made it hard to get rubber from Africa). Still, it was scarcer than it had been.
It was tougher for the Germans to get rubber, so the Germans were making rubber from coal with slave labor from Auschwitz.
Today, surgical gloves are made from nitrile rubber (fake rubber) because some people are allergic to latex (real rubber)
Interesting Thank You.