Josh Clark

It's really awful.

But we've kind of figured out in the interim that synthetic rubber, it's useful, but there's nothing that can match natural rubber for like grip, heat dissipation, all sorts of other properties.

So we're starting to go back to look at sources for natural rubber, including ones that are more sustainable than the rubber trees, which require you basically deforest and then plant the rubber trees to create a plantation.

With dandelions, you don't have to do that stuff.

No.

You got a big field, you can have dandelions.

And like I said, it grows in, it doesn't have to be great soil.

You can grow it hydroponically without soil at all.

You can grow it in the air, which is aeroponically.

It's pretty amazing.

And I think it's one of those things where like,

Anytime you have a monoculture plant like that, like the rubber tree, it makes people a little bit nervous besides the deforestation.

Like if anything ever happened, like some kind of weird blight and the rubber trees were just, you know, not a candidate anymore, you got dandelions kind of waiting on deck with their bat.

Right.

So it's kind of surprising that it went from this really prized plant in so many ways to a hated weed, especially in Europe and the United States.

And you hit upon why it became a hated weed.

You used the word monoculture.

And the largest monoculture here in the United States are people's lawns.

And for part of the aesthetic of the lawn, you cannot have dandelions breaking up that perfect, unbroken sea of green grass.

You got a dandelion popping up, the whole thing's ruined, basically.