natural pesticides, it is resistant to many pests and diseases. Nonetheless, its slow growth from seed means herbicides are needed for stand establishment. History In the 1920s, the plant saw a brief and intense amount of agricultural research when the Intercontinental Rubber Company in California produced 1400 tons of rubber after South American Leaf Blight decimated the Brazilian rubber industry. Guayule would again become a replacement for Hevea tree-produced latex during World War II when Japan cut off America's Malaysian latex resources. The war ended before large-scale farming of the guayule plant began, and the project was scrapped, as it was cheaper to import tree-derived latex than to crush the shrubs for a smaller amount of latex. Currently, PanAridus and Yulex are the only commercial producers of guayule natural rubber in the world. Yulex have partnered with Patagonia who are now making its Yulex wetsuit from Guayule derived plant stems in a 60/40 blend (60% guayule, 40% neoprene), reducing dependence on conventional neoprene. In October 2015, the Bridgestone Corporation announced the creation of the first tires made entirely of guayule rubber, having built an experimental farm and biorubber research center in Mesa, Arizona the previous year. The guayule is grown in Mesa and Eloy, Arizona. Hypoallergenic properties In the 1980s, a surge of Type 1 latex allergy coincided with a world-wide increase in demand for latex gloves in response to heightened precautions to prevent the spread of diseases, AIDS and Hepatitis B, for example. While Hevea-derived rubber contains proteins that can cause severe allergic reactions in some people, guayule does not. Although there are synthetic alternatives for medical device products, they are not as elastic as natural rubber. Guayule performs like Hevea but contains none of the proteins related to latex allergies. In 1997, a process to make hypoallergenic guayule latex was licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the Yulex Corporation. Biofuel Guayule's viability as a potential biofuel has been enhanced recently in light of commentary from a variety of experts, including Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, stating that "[food based] biofuels pit the 800 million people with cars against the 800 million people with hunger problems," meaning that biofuels derived from food crops (like maize) raise world food prices. Guayule can be an economically viable biofuel crop that does not increase the world's hunger problem. Guayule has another benefit over food crops as biofuel