Rubber is indigenous to South America. Many attempts to start a viable rubber industry in that region have met with failure because of the presence of SALB and the lack of a cost-effective management tools in that region. SALB spreads rapidly causing severe leaf fall and twig dieback. Chemical control that involves repeated fungicide applications to trees of great height has been found to be expensive and impractical. Breeding for disease resistance was continuously frustrated by the concurrent evolution of new physiological races of the pathogen that are capable of breaking down the resistance. No rubber clones can therefore escape infection over the long term. The.
