Effect of agroclimatic variability on land suitability for cultivating rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) and growth performance assessment in the tropical rainforest climate of Peninsular Malaysia

Climate change directly alters climate conditions and indirectly impacts land suitability for cultivating rubber. The Malaysian tropical rainforest climate with regular rainfall of about 2000–2500 mm per year and the average temperature of 26–28 °C provide a suitable condition for planting rubber commercially. There is doubt about how well rubber plants will perform in the future because of climate change. The main question of whether rubber is still appropriate for planting in Peninsular Malaysia must be answered conclusively as rubber requires an approximately 30 year investment in one cycle. This question is particularly relevant in Malaysia as its rubber production is dependent on smallholders. Smallholders contribute approximately 93% of natural rubber production and furthermore, 93% of the rubber land area in Malaysia is owned by smallholders. An agroclimatic map produced in this study will help smallholders in deciding whether to proceed with rubber or change to other valuable crops based on their specific location. In this study, we evaluate 21st century land suitability for cultivating rubber and assess its growth based on climatic data for the Historical (1970–2000), Early (2010–2040), Middle (2040–2070) and End (2070–2100) projections periods. We use the Hevea 1.0 static model for rubber tree modelling to calculate the agroclimatic indices and estimate 30 years’ of actual rubber growth (girth) for all study periods. We find that climate change is predicted to have a positive impact on rubber-suitability in tropical rainforest in Malaysia climates at least until 2100. The End period, where the precipitation and temperature are projected to experience significant increases, becomes more favourable to rubber. The Perak region shows the highest increase in estimated rubber growth in the Early, Middle, and End periods by 16.3%, 31.9% and 39.4%, respectively. Among all regions, Kelang is predicted to be the most suitable area to plant rubber during the Early period as it has a potential estimated girth of up to 94.5 cm. Meanwhile, Johor is predicted to be the best place to cultivate rubber during the Middle and End periods with growth estimations of 97 cm and 99.5 cm, respectively. We indicate that about 32% of existing planted rubber area in Peninsular Malaysia is in Class 6 of land suitability to cultivate rubber