Impact of reduced tapping frequency on agronomic,physiological and biochemical aspects of clone PB 260 of Hevea brasiliensis in the centre west of Cote D'Ivoire

Rubber cultivation faces the problem of scarcity of skilled tapping labour despite a significant reduction in the tapping intensity owing to latex harvesting technologies. thus,it is essential to optimise latex harvesting technologies by a greater reduction in the needfor tapping labour to achieve this,a study was conducted on clone pb 260 of hevea brasiliensis,in gagnoa,in the centre west of cote d'ivoire. low tapping frequencies (d4,d5 and d6) which are low consumers of tapping labour were compared to the standard (d3) system,which is a high consumer of tapping labour the results showed that low frequency tapping leads to yield losses per tree by four to 31% compared with standard tapping. these low yield losses however are compensated by the additional areas that these technologies are able to exploit. furthermore,low frequency tapping improves yield per tree and per tapping as well as the output of the tapper by 23 to 36% compared with standard tapping. in addition to that,low frequency tapping systems have no sign jflcant negative impact on vegetative growth,physiological profile and sensitivity to tapping panel dryness. therefore,these technologies can be adopted to remedy the shortage of tapping labour in rubber cultivation.