Sea of dandelions. Every year there are more and more of them!

Basics

A specific type of Dandelion produces latex/natural rubber in it's roots
With the proper equipment, it can be extracted
Thus this allows for a sustainable, relitively easy source of rubber (with the other options being the hard to grow latex trees, and the complex chemical process of Biocrude / Pyrolysis Oil refinment and then production of synthetic polymers from said chemicals produced in the aformentioned processes)
Isn't common now with the cheaper sources of tree latex and petroleum based synthetic rubber, but was used during times like war when these resources were scarce
With Environmental Issues and/or Strategic Resource Independence in mind, the concept has been explored more in recent years:
- In particular, Continental Tire is in the process of commercializing the process, RE Taraxagum Process

Open Source Literature

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/20/us-dandelion-rubber-idUKKBN0GK0LN20140820
http://www.ars-grin.gov/
Ohio State University is developing rubber from Russian Dandelion roots. http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/…/OARDC_Impacts_-_Local,_Re…. The USDA germplasm repository can provide seeds to farmer scientists - variety of Dandelion is Taraxacum kok-saghyz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78rc9WlByyA. Dr. Fred Michel at Ohio State University-OARDC is doing this work, with Dr. Katrina Cornish as project director.
Another good article on challenges, and how the Man is tight lipped about the practice. Another call for open source science, please. This will be good for the open source nursery and breeding program. Opensourcing of breeding and extraction techniques is in order for achieving distributed economies.