Cultural Practices
Cultural practices form a major component of control, especially that targeted to reduce the inoculum level. When a rubber area is to be replanted, the methods used to clear old trees from the land determine the residual level of inoculum. Full mechanical clearing - uprooting the trees, ploughing and raking the land to collect and dispose of the rubber roots - offers the least incidence of root disease in a replanting (Newsam, 1967). This procedure is expensive and cannot be adopted by smallholders, who may clear the land by felling the trees with chainsaws and applying aboricides to promote faster decay (Newsam, 1967; Lim and Abdul Aziz, 1981). Painting the cut surfaces of the stumps with creosote was once suggested, to prevent colonization of the stumps via basidiospores (John, 1965), but the practice was questioned by Fox (1977).