I am trying to educate myself on rubber and am seeking definitions or descriptions of the different types (perhaps categories or quality is a better term) commonly referred to by traders such as RSS3, SMR20, SIR20, STR20, etc

I have searched the internet and this forum with little luck.

Does anyone have a reference with a brief description of each?

Thanks in advance....

Hi spacelord

I’m not a rubber farmer (though I did plant 70 rai a few years ago…another story) but suggest you look at this site for starters: http://www.pechsiam.com/allabout_rubber_varieties.htm

Rgds

Khonwan

Great link Khonwan and not only for rubber. You should put it in the "Farming Links and Resources" forum, if it isn't already there. Looked for it but didn't see it. I'm going to spend a couple of hours reading it when I have time.........

finner

I worked in a rubber plantation in Malaysia before.

RSS stands for Ribbed smoked sheet. There are three grades RSS 1, 2 and 3. If the latex from the field is properly filtered, processed into sheets and smoked in smoke house you get golden yellow sheets when viewed against the sunlight. They should almost be no impurity. That's RSS 1. More impurity and darker colour appear on second and third grade sheets. You see ribs on the wet sheets after going through the machine, hence the name.

SMR stands for Standard Malaysian Rubber. I am not sure exactly how it is produced.

Looks like STR is the Thai version of SMR and SIR Indonesian then.