 Okay, good morning, good afternoon to everybody and welcome to this second day of this science workshop on natural rubber systems and climate change. I'm pleased to open it on behalf of the co-organizer IRG, IRDB, CIRAD, C4 and the CGI research program on forestry and agroforestry. We still have an exciting program today. Yesterday, on the first day, we looked at broadly the impact and the challenges that climate change poses to rubber production in different areas. We will close this segment of the workshop today, this morning or early afternoon by looking at the impact in traditional and non-traditional areas. We see that both are disrupted in different ways. And then in the second part of this day, we look at the responses, the responses that rubber can bring to these challenges, both when we look at the mitigation opportunity, but also the adaptation. And then on day three, tomorrow, we'll see how we can facilitate these responses, either by acting on policies or the enabling environment at national or international level. Without further ado, let's start the session 1.3. You have the program on the web. If you want to follow, and we're delighted to have four distinguished presenters, Dr. Omokafi from Nigeria, Fede Gea from France, Dr. Ottman from Malaysia and Dr. Vijaya from Indonesia. I think we may start with the presenter number two, Fede Gea, because we're just trying to get Omokafi online. So we'll have 15 minutes for each presentation. And then we'll have a question and answers. If you have questions during the presentations or remarks, or this is to all the participants, please look at the chat. There is a chat function, so you can make comments. And there is also, if you have very specific questions, a Q&A feature, you can also use that to ask questions to the presenter. So, Fede Gea, the floor is yours. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'm sharing my screen now. Okay. Can everyone see it? Okay. Let's go. Okay. So good morning, everybody. First of all, I would like to thank RSG and all the organizers of the workshop for inviting me to give this presentation that deals with the management of soil quality to improve the sustainability of rubber plantations. So I'm Dr. Fede Gea from SIRAD. And I'm doing this presentation on behalf of a group of researchers from France, Thailand, and Ivoricost, who are aware, involved in the works I will present in this lecture. So first, to start this presentation, I would like to recall the importance of soils in the mitigation and adaptation to climate change. So in this figure issued by FAO in 2015 for the International Year of Soil, we can see the multiple ecosystems functions and services the soil provides. Among them, too, in red here, are important for the mitigation of climate change. These are the capacity of soil to store organic carbon and also the role of soil in the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly emissions of nitrous oxide that is linked to the application of mineral fertilizers. Regarding adaptations, adaptation soils are important because they are essential for the primary productivity of the ecosystem through the regulation of nutrient and water cycle that depend a lot on the biodiversity of organisms living at the soil surface or in the soil layers. If one goes through the recent scientific literature about rubber plantations and soils, it will mainly find papers about the negative effects of the conversion of land use from forest to plantations. For instance, in this paper of De Blicourt and Etal, it shows the strong decrease in soil-organic carbon after the conversion of secondary forest rubber plantations in South China. And these are the papers from Guillaume Etal show a broader view of the soil degradation after forest in Indonesia. Deforestation is, of course, an important issue, but today my objective is to consider the role of soils in the sustainability of rubber plantations. That means what happened after the deforestation? Okay, several questions must be addressed. First, if conversion of forest to rubber drives soil degradation, we can wonder what happened when we changed land use from another crop to rubber. So this is the first question we can ask. Secondly, it is also important to look at how soil quality evolves during the lifetime of a rubber plantation that spans from 20 to 40 years. For instance, in the case of conversion of forest to rubber plantation, does soil degradation continue or is there any room for improvement of soil functions? Obviously, it is necessary also to wonder how sensitive are the performances of the rubber plantation particularly yield to soil quality. And finally, as agronomists, we are interested to know if there are good agricultural practices that can help to improve soil quality or at least avoid more degradation. So in the following, I will try to bring some kind of an answer to these questions based on the works we have done over the last few years. Okay, then at this point of my presentation, it is important to make things clear about how we define and assess soil quality. Actually, we rely on the definition brought forward by Karlenn et al. and Walter et al. that soil quality is the capacity of soils to function and provide ecosystem services. Concretely, it means that we cannot assess soil quality only through the measurement of nutrient stocks or basic physical parameters such as soil texture. We need indicators of the main functions of soil. In this respect, we developed the bioform tool method based on a conceptual approach of kibble white that identifies three main soil functions, carbon transformation, nutrient cycling, and structure maintenance. For each of these functions, we selected low-cost infield indicators with the idea of building an affordable and user-friendly tool for assessing soil quality. The current version of the bioform tool method includes nine indicators which are finally aggregated in one soil quality index. In the following, we will see several examples of the application of this tool. Okay, back to the rubber plantation now. When considering the relationships between soil and the functioning of the plantation, okay, we must distinguish two main phases of a rubber plantation. The immature phase from the planting of the plantation and until the opening of the trees for latex harvesting that occurs between five to seven years after planting, and the mature plantation which follows and can last up to three years and correspond to the period of tree tapping for latex. In two recent papers, we have highlighted the specificities of these two phases regarding fertilization and nutrition of the trees. Okay, the immature phase is characterized by a rapid growth of the tree, high nutrient requirement, and significant positive response to fertilization, also in fertility. And during the mature phase, we have low growth and nutrient exports and a response of yield to fertilization that is unclear. In this slide, in the graph and the table, we have illustration of those features. In the graph, so the graph displays the nutrient accumulation throughout the lifespan of a rubber plantation, so nutrient accumulation in the tree. That I come from rubber plantations in Ivory Coast. It shows a peak of nutrient accumulation between two and five years old and a decrease afterwards. So it shows the importance of the immature phase in nutrient accumulation in the system. In the table, so the table presents the results of a five-year experiment on the effect of mineral fertilization on the rubber yield and functioning of a mature plantation. So the first line confirms that fertilization doesn't have a strong direct effect on the rubber yield. You can see here that after five years, the effect of fertilization is the same, is similar, and relatively small, whatever the dose is. But on the other end, the results also show that several variables related to tree functioning or latex metabolism increased proportionally to the dose of fertilizer. So then these results suggest that proper management of the fertilization or of the soil fertility can be favorable for the plantation sustainability. From our work in Thailand, we also highlighted the changes in soil quality along the lifetime of a rubber plantation. This graph shows the Biophone Tool Soil Quality Index for a chrono sequence of rubber plantations compared to the main previous land use of the city, which was cassava field, and a local forest. Here again, we can distinguish the immature phase and the immature phase. So the immature phase which displays a low soil quality that is not different from the previous land use, and along the mature phase, an improvement of soil quality towards the quality of the forest. So then in the previous slides, we got some answers to the question about how soil quality evolves in a rubber plantation and how it can affect plantation performances or sustainability. With this in mind, we will now look at the three examples to illustrate what can be good agricultural practices. So the two first examples we will see are related to the management of soil cover, and the third one is related with the management of the replanting phase between two successive plantations. Okay, the first example to illustrate the importance of soil cover management comes from a study carried out in Northern Thailand in the framework of the EVA ADAP project. In this study, runoff and soil detachment were compared between maize field, mature rubber plantation, immature rubber plantation with inter crops, and mature rubber plantation in which other sites were used to eliminate the natural vegetations in the row or in the interrow. Okay, the results clearly showed that the risk of soil erosion increased when the soil is bare and even in mature plantation with a dense tree canopy. So then this results confirms the importance of inter cropping during the immature phase, and the importance of limiting chemical weeding during the immature or mature phase that was already shown by the works of the German and Chinese team in South China, in South China. The next, the second example about soil cover management illustrates the benefits of cover cropping with legumes. First, a study carried out in the mountain river growing area of the north-eastern Thailand showed the strong influence of growing prairie inter crops, cover crops, on the growth of the trees. In this study, the nitrogen fixation by the leguminous crop was estimated to more than 200 kilos of nitrogen per hectare. In the second study in the same region, we looked at the effect of a mukuna cover crop on the soil quality assessed with the biochemical method. The results show that the soil quality of a four-year plantation with mukuna was significantly higher than a four-year plantation with cassava intercropping and was similar to the soil quality in a nine-year old plantation. So with this, we can accelerate the improvement of soil quality. Okay, the next example is to illustrate the problem of replanting management. From this study in South Thailand, we mimic the sequence 75-year sequence, starting with forest and continuing with three successive rubber plantations. And we can see that along this sequence, we have a continuous decrease of organic matter content despite the little improvement that can occur during the rubber plantation. The problem is that in most rubber producing countries, part of the wall of the tree biomass of the old plantation, the previous plantation, is exported or burnt before setting up a new one. So in some countries, shrunks and bigger branches of rubber are used as timber. So then they represent an alternative source of revenue for farmers. But in other countries, residues are just burnt, which is not acceptable. So then we set up an experiment in Naveri coast to test another option which consists in leaving part of the entire tree biomass in the intervals of the new plantation. And the results show that, so here again is the results with the BioFontool method. It shows first that after only 18 months of the, after logging of the plantation and so the 18 months with the residue on the ground, we can see a significant increase in soil quality, in the soil quality index. In the end, at the same time, we can see positive effects on tree growth. Then we can summarize the information from this presentation as follows. First, we saw that soil quality can have a strong positive effect on the functioning of the rubber plantation. Therefore, managing soil quality must be taken into account in strategy for the adaptation of rubber plantations to climate change. In this respect, it is important to keep in mind that soil quality naturally improves in mature plantations. But in the meantime, good agricultural practices can be adopted to avoid soil degradation or further improve the quality of the soil. In my presentation, I didn't really talk about it, but it is important to revise fertilizers application in accordance with better knowledge of nutrient dynamics. And in the meantime, soil cover and logging residues management must be considered because they are examples of the importance of adding organic matter alive or dead to the soil. Last point, this last, my last point, besides experimental works to enrich our knowledge about the real relationships between practices, soil quality and plantation performances. It is also important to work on the factors that can contribute to the adoption of these practices by small orders. Because as some papers have pointed out, this is certainly the main bottleneck to the adoption of these practices that I show. And this point must be addressed in the future. Then to conclude, I would like to acknowledge the funding agency and private companies which funded the different projects that allow us to produce the data I presented to you today. So there was the Thai International Corporation Agency, the French National Research Agency, Yara Company and the French and the company that makes the French River Institutes. So thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Thank you very much, Frédéric. I propose that we go to the presentation of Dr. Ottman from Malaysia and just a message in the meantime to Dr. Omokathir from Nigeria is hearing me. Please get in touch with us and give us a sign so that we're sure you're going to be able to present. So Dr. Ottman, the floor is yours. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, okay, thank you. Dr. Aziz, yes. No, I call the director of Arara in Nigeria, so they are making an arrangement to get Mukafir ready. Excellent. Thank you so much. Please go ahead. Yeah. Okay. Good afternoon. Good morning. Okay. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and also good morning and good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. I'm Ramli Ottman, is a fellow of the RDB, a retired plant breeder from the rubberist institute of the inflation rubber bot. All right. Next. So the natural rubber belongs to the family U4BSA, and there are 10 species in this genus Hivea. And this genus Hivea is in the Amazon basin. Also, you can find it in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, French Guayana, Guayana, Sweden, and Venezuela. So different species prefer different habitat, whereas Hivea presidencies you can find all over in this region of the center of origin. And when you look at the environment in the Amazon, all right, it is a flat land between the equator. Equator is over here and goes down to 15 degrees south. So these are the regions of the center of origin. And normally the altitude is not exceeding 200 meters. And it's a wet equatorial climate, 25 to 28 degrees centigrade with abundant rainfall more than 2,000 millimeters per year. And the commercially out of the 10 one species Hivea presidencies is commercially cultivated. All right. And they have been planted in mainly mineral areas. These are having this latitude of the 10 degrees north and south of this equator. All right. These are the main rubber areas, we call it which have been more or less the same environment as in the center of diversity. All right. And this area is having rainfall of 2,000 to 4,000 millimeters and mean temperature to the degrees plus minus 2 degrees centigrade. And also the daytime 12 hours, regardless of the season. Dr. Otman? Yes, I want to interrupt you, it's Vincent here. Some in the chat have asked if you could put the slides full screen because the screen. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Sorry for interrupting. Okay. And then this rubber has been moving up to the, away from the traditional, we call it the non-traditional areas. And this is the latitude for the non-traditional areas is that those areas more than 10 degrees north or south of the equator. And these areas having suboptimal environments and they have constraints with the droughts, low temperature, high altitude, disease and strong winds. And just trying to make it screen. Okay. This, the non-traditional areas, talking about this 80 degrees to the 24 degrees north, example those in India of northeast, Vietnam, highlands and the coastal and South China, Thailand, northeast. All right. And Bangladesh. And whereas in the south, this treasure areas, 20 to 22 degrees south, this, this Brazil Southern plateau, South Polo. All right. And it seems, all right, rubber is a robust and versatile plant. And in those, in modular areas, what we have to do is hunting the right clone at the right environment. So the breeders have been having very good success. All right. In the early days of the unslector settings, the yield was about 400 kg per hectare per year. And we managed to increase the yield, the genetic potentials beyond 3000 kg per hectare per year. All right. With the new modern clones. And, and to the breeders, because the heavier breeding is actually an art as well as the science. All right. So the breeders always want to breed ideal clone, the clone that is a big, strong and friendly. And of course, satisfaction guaranteed. All right. And we have to go initially to the drone bot. We have to draw and what we like to have. So the tree must be vigorous and a fast growing and high left axial. All right. And a high timber volume. And we want the trees to be, the trunk should be erect. All right. With acute angle branches. And this is resistance. All right. And a wind resistance. And also having very good type of system for the good anchorage and for the uptake of the nutrients and water. And also think about, all right, to give you to have more of the latex vessels. And of course, of this robust tree, vigorous tree, we can have a very good timber volume. At the end of the day. So to summarize the breed, object is, is then we put on paper, high latex yield, high timber yield, good growth, vigour, resistance to medialic diseases, resistance to wind damage, good growth in cream and on tapping, good effectiveness, tolerance to tree dryness, acceptable latex and rubber properties, response to chemical stimulation and good seeder. This is optional. Those interested for the oil. All right. And then those in money dollar areas, then we, they prefer to have this additional cold tolerance clone. Dr. Hoffman. Yes. Sorry to interrupt once again. We, we are stuck at, at your slide, number seven. So we, we are, if, if you could please go to the, we are not seeing the current slides. It is, it is stuck. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six. So if you could, if you could go to the right slide and continue your talk with, it was very interesting, but just, just put the good slides so that we could. Yeah. If you want, we could also pass the slides for you from, from the back end, if you prefer. I've already changed some of the slacks. We use our slacks, right? Okay. Here. All right. The, the non-traditional areas, the rubber has been planted. I'm moving to the non-traditional areas. These are having those planted in the latitude, greater than 10 degrees north and south of the equator. All right. And as a couple of those countries, those beyond between this 18 degrees to 20 degrees south, India, Northeast, right? Vietnam, Highlands and coastal, South China, Thailand, Northeast, Bangladesh, and those in the south, 20 to 22 degrees south is the Brazil, Southern plateau, south plateau. And to us, to the British, right? Rubber is robust and versatile. Even in those marginal areas, what we have to do is the planting the right clone at the right environment. All right. And the British having very good success in breeding these rubber clones and for those unselected seedlings, initially we get about 400 kg per hectare per year, but we managed to increase through the breeding program and up to beyond 3000, having genetic potentials of beyond 3000 kg per hectare per year. All right. And the curious breeding, kibia breeding is an art, also a science. And the British always want to breed ideal clone. That means a clone which is a strong, big, strong and family, and of course satisfaction, guaranteed. So we always go to the drawing board like here and we draw and what to expect. We expect clones which is a vigorous and fast growing. All right. Having erect trunk and high timber volume for, and then high latex yield. This is resistance even to the coming one, pastelotopsis and so on, and wind resistance. All right. All this trunk damage and have very good tech root system. All right. This is for the drought, mainly. You can guess water and nutrients, right? Because seven to eight years old tree, the tech root system can go down to 2.5 meters. And of course we'll also to select those having very thick bark, all right, that gives you more latex vessels and more yield. And of course also we go with acute branching and angle branching and having oval canopy. This is some of the characteristics of wind resistance. And we put it on paper. These are all mainly the objectives, high latex yield, high timber yield, good growth rigour, resistance in many areas, resistance to wind damage, good growth increment, good bark thickness, tolerance to tree dryness, acceptable latex and rubber properties, response to chemical stimulation, good seeder. All right. This is for those who wants to have extract oil from the seeds. And in the marginal areas, then we go with this cold tolerance clone. So even we are happy, the breeders happy, but still in the hut, we are not that really happy because of the narrowness of the hibia genetic base. It's a major obstacle towards improving the rubber yield and other important characters. All right. So the RDB in 1981 had gone to the Amazon, all right, to collect this hibia germplasm. And there are three states that the collection in Acra, Rondonia and Matagrosso. Initially, when Henry Wickham collected the seeds is from a small area here at Boim or at the confluence of the Tupperjuice and the Amazon area. All right. And this is just to show you some of the very vigorous and genotypes from the 1981. And then in 1995, the Malaysian government and the Brazilian had a joint expedition to the Amazon. This time, we are focusing on these areas, those in the upper Amazonas, all right, those bordering to Peru and this Colombia in the areas of Tabachinga, Benjamin Constant, Atalia Dunote, so follow the elephants here. All right. And just to show you, before we move in for the expedition, these are the members. All right. This is Ado Aziz, when he was a young man, that's me and my colleagues. And the trees are being evaluated and also having that size at the moment. And just the RDB, and we had Dr. Aziz plan to have a new expedition to the Amazon. And this time is Amazon Peru. All right. And this is the, those areas of our prospection. And the objective is to collect seeds of the various heavies from the Amazon of Peru with the purpose of increasing the heavier genetic pool in the RDB member countries towards enhancing heavier genetic improvement. All right. And what's the justification of the expedition? We feel further progress in heavier breeding for better yields for both latex and timber can be achieved through the widening of the narrow genetic base of this crop. And this is important. There is evidence that genes for disease resistance and other desirable traits such as tolerance to low temperature may be found in heavier species in Peru. So our areas of prospection is this green areas is on the eastern side of the Andes. All right. And this is Amazon Peru. And we like to go to those areas, Equitos, Pucallapa, and right down to these areas of Tingo Mariah for the prospection. And we hope to collect more about six species from this coming expedition. And what we're going to do with these materials, it can be for direct use for timber species and also for the hybridization with the jump blaster with the wick hum, wick hum with the jump puzzle crosses or the back crosses and also the widening of the genetic base. And this last slide is the RDB also having 49 clones, multilateral clone for exchange, which is a way forward to make the industry needs to for vigorous high yielding clones, which are resistance to diseases and suited for cultivation in the very climatic conditions, even in the marginal areas, including those from, all right, in the, I guess, mentioned marginal areas. So thank you for listening to us. Heaver breeding is a process, no ending and no beginning. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hoffman, that was very insightful, no beginning, but progressing. And so let me ask our last presenters from Indonesia, Dr. Vijaya, to take the floor. And then, since we are a bit late in the program, if we don't manage to connect today, Dr. Omokafir from Nigeria, I propose that we manage to having tomorrow in our program, because we believe that an African perspective is also very important. But please, Dr. Vijaya, please take the floor. If you're here, Dr. Vijaya from the Indonesian Rubber Research Institute, do you copy? We had him in the room a few minutes ago, so it shouldn't be far away. In the meantime, what I could ask or distinguish other presenters or panelists or the person, the 167 person having joined us in the audience, if you have questions, please, I think we can use the time right now, either please use the chat and or the Q&A, and then I can redirect the questions to the two presenters while we try to get the last one. So there is one question, if I may, in the Q&A from Thierry Tser, whether someone around the table does have an idea about the active EVA breeding programs around the world today? So I guess that's perhaps a question for IRDB to brief us or brief the audience on that. So it's the Q&A on the chat. The technical persons, can you give the floor to IRDB? To Dr. Vijaya. Figure out the question because it's too small for my eyes. Yeah, what about the current stages of the EVA breeding programs around the world? How is it going? Okay, thank you very much. First, with the 1981 expedition, the materials have all been circulated, subject to the request of the receiving countries, they have and they have utilized those germplasm brought in 1981 and there are now clones produced because it takes about 30 years or so and these clones, some of them are included in the IRDB multilateral clone exchange program, which total of 49 clones are being exchanged and included in these are five clones from Brad in the Bahia CMS, which is Sirat Michelin, selection clones from Bahia, so they are also included and the next breeding program, the reason why we are keen to go to Peru is because some countries are growing rubber, so low, you know low temperature areas and some also in drought prone areas, so we actually discussed this project with the late Dr. Shultes, who was the ethnobotanist from Harvard University and he told us that he did some collection, so we are hoping to get the in fact we've been in touch with the Peruvian government, only thing we haven't got the green light yet, we invited somebody from the Department of Agriculture to Philippines in 2014, I think that's the deep program is a very active breeding program in all member countries, so now since Thomas is already here. Thank you very much and I guess that's very that's that's a very comprehensive answer, of course there are many much more to be said, I think that can be followed up or fly now in the chat, because in the meantime Dr. Vijaya has managed to come back online, so I guess the thanks for joining back and the floor is yours for your presentation, so Dr. Indonesian rubber research institute, please go ahead. Thank you the organizer, sorry my internet is getting trouble, so I've become offline for a few minutes, so I will start my presentation, okay everybody see my presentation, hello yes it's go ahead please it's perfect, okay thank you so I will start my presentation, my topic of presentation is climatic monitoring and analysis to optimize rubber cultivation, so we know that climate is very important, rubber growth and yield is really affected by climate variability and we know that El Nino, La Nina and recently in the Indian Ocean De Paul mode affected the amount of rainfall, especially Indonesia, we are really affected by this anomaly, climatic anomaly, so this also affects the performance of rubber tree, so the important of climate observation is we need the data used for land sustainability assessment and to know how to create the climate fluctuation, the impact of climate fluctuation, and we can relate climate with the crop performance and the most important thing is we can make adjustments in rubber cultivation, now I will talk a lot more on adjustment on cultivation based on the climate data, so I'm presenting you the standard climate review station, here's a picture in the Sembawa Research Center, this is a conventional climate station, we need a space of 20 meters by 20 meters, but now the instrument like this, like the candlestick on the left right is for solar irrigation instrument, and it's for temperature and humidity instrument upon evaporation and also for rainfall instrument, but now there is a new technology called automatic weather station, it is more simple, we need a small space and everything is recorded in this kind of station, automatic weather station got the sensor on radiation, UV, temperature, humidity, wind speed and wind direction and rainfall, data is transmitted where slash and recorded by console, climate condition can be seen on console screen, so what happened in the field we can monitor from the room, from the monitoring of the console and also we can record frequency of recording, for example every 5, 10 or 30 minutes and also equipped with software for weathering, we can also calculate the evapotranspiration estimation and also we can share the data to other station, so we can develop the link between station, this picture of the console that we can put in the room, we can monitor what happened in the field, the climate condition, the weather condition in the room, so it is very comfortable, so the advantage is data is more easily intensively recorded, data is stored in file, less human error, you know that by recording manually by human sometimes we make error reading in QA and with this data we can reduce the error, also reduce the limitation of user, for example holiday and sickness and the user cannot come to the office and we lost the data but with automatic weather station this can be ignored and also there is a feature with the forecasting, with the the next 3 hours will be rain or not, this given by the software and also less expensive compared to the conventional weather station and more practical and movable, so I'm talking the parameters and use, first is we can predict rainfall especially during because we know that there is a strong correlation, SOI also autonomous citizen index with rainfall and we could rate with 3 monthly ahead, this example there is SOI and we know that when SOI is negative correspond to El Nino and rainfall will be less, so I study in one plantation and we have a linear correlation between rainfall and also with SOI, so we can predict SOI with rainfall also with automatic weather station we know the time of rainfall, this is the distribution rainfall in the Sembawara center, we can study that most rain is occur in the afternoon, we can see the more frequent rain after 2 o'clock 2 pm, so this mean that we need to be careful on late drip of latex, the latex still dripping and the rain come it will be lost and recently we developed a simple rain guard, we can plan the forecasting panel and we can see that we can reduce the plastic loss by using the rain guard, we can see that tapping panel is still dry, well above the rain guard we can see that still wet, so this example of the effect of lanina, so in Sembawara center, so we can see that more rain come during the lanina, we can see the tapping day here, tapping day is increase, 334 is on lanina on normally that 328, so increase of rainfall day also reducing also the tapping day, so we lost of the rubber yield too of rain excessive rain during the lanina, so anticipation also leave this is attack, we know the characteristic of coletotricum is really related strongly with the climatic condition especially rainfall, so the effect of coletotricum is very severe, actually during the wintering and revolution, you can see that yield is depressed during the lanina condition and slowly recover but we lost 3 months years due to the lanina, to the coletotricum and based on the experience we can make early warning system, so coletotricum is related to the first 10 days of new live formation, what happen in the first 10 days will affect the live performance, for example if the rainfall is less, for example less than 3 days, so the live is okay but going to 6 to 8 days rain during the first 10 days this affect the live performance because coletotricum will attack severely, so based on the climatic observation actually we can make a decision to control the live disease and now we are working on the pestalotyopsis, so we need to gather more data and then we will do the same looking the climatic rate and related to the attack of disease, so a practical example of using the climatic data is for the water requirement, people use the pun evaporation plus a pun evaporation to estimate the water requirement, so usually we take the general approach, there is no water stress when available water in the soil is more than 50%, so we can estimate the ETP by measuring the from the pun evaporation or using the pain magnetode, this example of using the pun evaporation to estimate the amount of irrigation we need to apply to rubber nursery, for example when we create snow rain and we monitor from pun evaporation and multiply by Kc, Kc is proper EBCN, so we know the number by experiment, so it's the estimation of water requirement 2, 3, 3, 2 and 2 and 3 millimeters, total for one week is water requirement 18 millimeters and by knowing the characteristics of soil we know that 30% of available water is 30 millimeters, so knowing by knowing that we need to bring back soil moisture to fill capacity how much, so we can also simply calculate 30 millimeters subtract with 18, so we need to apply irrigation as much as 22 millimeters, so it's a way to avoid the water stress for rubber industry and then next one is time of funding also important, so we want to plan when there is no water deficit or when rainfall is greater than ETP or water and cell evaporation and soil also moist enough and because of the rainfall variability we need to take account the probability, so normally people take 70% of probability occurrence will be better to anticipate the climatic anomaly, here is an example from the Sembauer Center, this is a long-term data 20 years data, usually people think about the average or mean annual rainfall, we can see is quite high and we can see that September usually is high, but actually if we take the variability of rainfall this is not good enough, this is risky, now we are applying the probability 75%, now by doing this one we know that the safest month for planting is November because we have a good probability of success, the rainfall is 216 millimeters, before that October, September, August is very risky because low rainfall is on the probability, so we need to take on the chance of the success, this way the concept of the planting is depend on the variability of rainfall, so next one is crop model, it is needed to know the potential of root rubber tree, especially for new area that we haven't had experience growing rubber area and we use the rainfall radiation temperature to develop the model, so I took from Australian model gross model using three index, moisture, thermal and light index, when root index is zero it means no root, if root index is equal to one it means that optimum for rubber root, this example of moisture index, we can see that ratio actual and potential evapotranspiration, evapotranspiration is will be optimum when soil at fill capacity, what is going down when the water is running out, the ratio going down, so it means that if the EAP getting lower it means then water is become limiting, so water plant will be stressed and then also I developed from other many sources of experiment relation root and the average air temperature, you can see that the optimum temperature is about 28 centigrade, it's good for rubber growth and going down when the temperature is getting very low and become zero when it come to 10 degrees, so we can use this for modeling, this example if I run the model for several places, Palimbang is ideal for the rubber but Silo Parang Silo is very dry area, you can see that growth is very slow and reaching the maturity after 9 years, also for high elevation like Budung Mekang and Pajarulan, temperature is slow, also the growth is so slow and maturity may be after 8 years, so the climate is very important to be known especially if we want to grow in new area. In conclusion, climate data can be used for prediction and control devices, rainfall monitoring can assist in yield prediction and so tapping management, monitoring ETP can be used for education guidance, also climate data is very important for planting time decision, also the last one is to prediction growth in new planting area. Okay, that's all my presentation, thank you for your kind attention. Thank you Dr. Vijaya, that was very interesting, so now we have 15 minutes to close the session, there has been many questions already asked in the chat and thanks to Frederick for having already I guess answered 8 of them. There is one question, the remaining question in the chat and I asked the panelists to look at those, let me put one in the spotlight, they're all interesting but one I found quite relevant to this discussion is the issue of non-traditional areas and the need to look in those areas with new data coming from existing research, but why should we do that? This question from Jacob Matthew, when currently we know there is perhaps a gap between excess supply versus demand and so the question is why should we promote more planting in non-traditional areas, particularly breeding for specific clones for non-traditional places, so does anyone want to reply to this question? Why is that important to look at that? Yes, can you hear me clearly? Yes, okay, the reason is this because there are small owners who have land in the non-traditional areas and the best crop for them to grow is rubber because rubber upon maturity will give a steady income for the next 20-25 years. Well do under the current situation you're looking at a low price scenario, we have seen low prices before and the issue at hand is rubber normally bounces back although the current price might not be looking attractive to the growers but we cannot but help the small owners who are in these non-traditional areas that they want to grow rubber, it's not that we are forcing them to grow rubber, so we have to have clones which will help them to achieve certain productivity level and even in some countries it is already happening that the poor soils are relegated for rubber cultivation so you need also to when we say non-traditional areas sometimes the poor soils and you know the dry areas these are not the traditional areas for rubber, so we need to do that we need to do the breeding but this does not mean we are not breeding for the other common thing is additional to the current breeding program we need to have also clones that can be suitable for planting in the non-traditional areas thank you. Thank you thank you Dr Aziz I see that some participants have their hand raised if you have your hand raised please write your question in the chat and we'll ask that to the panelists there's anyone from the presenters have a question or comment on another presentation you can the presenters they can take the floor they can have this feature yeah so if not I have in the meantime I have a question I hope you hear me follow as a follow-up to what Dr Aziz just said what do you see the role of of international cooperation for for planting in these marginal conditions and this adaptation to to to none or less optimal conditions what is is it a national problem or should it be kind of an international issues? I think it is going to be an international issue because non-traditional areas is not just in one country is in many many countries and the RDB is fortunate the respect that we have all these different member institutes having problems like that so we our mission is basically is a cooperative mission to meet the needs of the small the growers which are predominantly now small holders so it is an international cooperation okay Vincent yes yes I hear you and and how do you see the the role of the international research versus the role of of the the governments the the states and and looking at this issue in the future yes I think I must point out that natural rubber is a very unique you know heavy species very very unique the first multi-lateral loan exchange program that we did was in 1974 and that gave an opportunity for some of these countries to put their clothes for the trial conducted in different countries the outcome of it is rubber trees they do not you know if it is bred in Indonesia sometimes it doesn't grow that well in Indonesia it grows well in Malaysia a good example is RM 600 we don't plan this loan anymore but 67 percent or more of RM 600 is planted in Thailand and the president in South America they love RM 600 so this is just an example that's why the board the RDB board has decided we should start this multi-lateral loan exchange so that the 49 clones can be exchanged and tested the main reason is these clones need to be tested so then you have an opportunity whether it is for the high altitude or for the you know for the cold region or for the dry regions basically not only the non-traditional areas so government I think here when we talk about the government support 99 percent of the RDB member institutes are government owned institute and I give you an example why international cooperation in breeding is very important you see the oldest rubber research institute in the world is Araray Sri Lanka so it was established in 1909 and when we had the problem of Coronospora and the Sri Lankan plant breeders came up with the clone resistant to Coronospora so I think that's just to give one example otherwise I have to take one hour to explain you details yes thank you that that's very useful and I think it's I hope you hear me I think that we can also discuss tomorrow about these issues and and make them raise the awareness of all our stakeholders of this of the importance of international cooperation um are there any other question in from the presenters someone wants to raise their hand from the group what is the effect of climate change on soil quality soil acidity available soil moisture content yeah I was reading the question so this is a good question that I did not address in my presentation because actually we won't have much to do on this but of course soil especially soil water content or soil moisture content is a very important driver of the biological activity of the soil which in terms is very important for the soil quality so we can expect that if we have more extreme events of dry period or very hot period it can affect the soil quality but so far we haven't studied it and I haven't in mind any study about this in rubber plantation but this is something that we must consider of course thank you thank you very so I guess no it's there are many questions so I think the the answers can continue in the chart for those who wants to provide a one perspective on on the questions that can go on offline so I would like to thank all the presenters and and we will get in touch with Dr. Omocafe from the Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria so that he can make his presentation tomorrow Vincent yeah do you hear I just want to yeah I just want to mention that I have to leave you because it's very late for me it's 1am so thank you very much and sorry for those who have questions I won't be able to answer but maybe you can forward to me or send it to my email thanks bye bye thank you thank you very so to to wrap up I I think we we see that there are many elements that come from research that come from the current size the current places of operation that can be relevant for the crucial questions of of the future of rubber including where perhaps new plantations can be can be established given the climatic condition in 30 years from now which is the key question and and understanding what are these conditions will be key for to renew plantations the question of what kind of genetic material we've seen that the question of management practices the good the good management practices and because of these renewal questions it's important to be able to give to small holders and and to investors the appropriate information and the technical package and incentives and I think we've seen from there would be many other examples I guess but from the set of presentation that that there is already knowledge available from that to answer these questions and another important point is how do we get climate and climate change information to do these projections to orient the plantations we've seen examples also in in other crops like coffee for example where vulnerability or suitability studies are critically important and then there is the question of in new areas how do you have extension services how do you help farmers or do you help small holders and then the value chains we have also good examples to present so as a wrap up I think that the question of this future distribution of rubber which is both within the new areas and and the traditional ones which both are going to be to be disrupted will need to take into account a lot of different things as we've seen in these presentations the complementarity with other land uses including the potential to integrate with other crops for the agriculture the look looking at how it relates to the protection of primary forest the competition with palm oil and the role for rubber for local communities and the adaptation to climate change I guess we've we've heard also some opportunities in terms of improving soil quality if good management practices are done and the issue about looking also at carbon content given land use change but also the opportunities in wood and and as part of the wood material and we'll be able to talk about that as well tomorrow because rubber it's not only the natural rubber as a as a bioproduct but it's also it's also of course the wood so I would like to thank all of you for for this session and I it's no time for a short break of 10 minutes until 20 until yes let me give the Singapore time so that we are online until 3 25 p.m. Singapore time so please either you can keep being online a talk on the chat there will be a slide and some music during the pose and let's come back in 10 minutes for the session that eric go ahead from sihad will will chair and that will look at the mitigation aspects but also the adaptation aspects of rubber to climate change thank you very much