Rubber vine is a rapidly growing perennial, thought to have been introduced by fossickers and miners in the gold rush and pastoralists at the end of the last century in the northern parts of Australia, as an ornamental plant or as a source of shade over shafts. Much of the main infestations of rubber vine within the rubber vine containment line can be traced to this factor. Areas such as Charters Towers, Georgetown, and the Palmer River region and to a lesser extent Mount Morgan, fall into this category. Rubber vine, Cryptostegia, was planted in 1943 around Charters Towers for the production of rubber due to it’s good quality latex in comparison to the traditional rubber tree, Heva, but due to uneconomically low yields this project soon terminated.

Description
Rubber vine is a single or many stemmed plant which has characteristic whip-like growth tips, which presents the plant as untidy. In an unsupported state, it grows to 1-2 metres. However, when supported, these shoots are capable of growing to the top of large trees, smothering them and thereby altering the habitat of native animals.

Latex is released when either stem, seedpod or leaves are cut or injured.

Leaves are mildly glossy and range from dark to light green, 6-10cm long by 3-5cm wide with a pink to purple mid-rib. The funnel shaped flower consists of 5 petals fused in the bottom two thirds which are pale pink at the extremities, gradually changing to a dark pink at the centre.

Adaptive Management Research
Adaptive Management is a process that fosters opportunities for interested parties to learn from outcomes from self-derived weed management plans. Recognising that some landholders have developed effective and innovative techniques for dealing with rubber vine, this program seeks to utilise this information in combination with existing research knowledge. The objective is to form small community groups that can interact with scientists to develop strategies that they feel are adequate to control rubber vine in their region. These strategies will be applied to field sites and continually monitored by research staff to evaluate outcomes so strategies can be adjusted by the group to achieve their desired results.

This continual cycle of assessment, development, implementation, monitoring, evaluating and adjustment is the basis of adaptive management.

Two working groups have been formed and a further one is in the process of forming. These groups fall in areas with significant infestations of rubber vine within the rubber vine containment line. Initial treatments will be collated towards the end of the wet season to determine the effect of each strategy.

In addition to this work there is to be three roadside demonstrations to show the benefits of best practice methods.