Is it possible to farm rubber?
Unfortunately the EE stuff is particularly expensive, but the easiest way that I've found using the full Technic Pack is to get the following:
- One log of Rubber Wood (either type is fine)
- One Energy Condenser from Equivalent Exchange.
- At least one Energy Collector, again from EE.
- One glowstone block (for powering the collector).
- An extractor and associated power source of some description.
- Various pipes and other stuff. (The logistics pipes especially help)
The basic principle is to use the energy condenser and collector to generate rubber wood from light and use that to feed your extractor to make rubber.
Below you can see a basic layout. I found in my testing that the extractor must be fed by the pipes from the top, otherwise you end up with the wood in weird places. This first screenshot is simple in layout however, so it displays the concept only. (Click for detail on the pipe configuration screens).
The pipes I've used from left -> right are a Provider Logistic Pipe, a Crafting Logistics Pipe and lastly a Request Logistics Pipe to get stuff out of the small system.
My final working system:
If you need a cheaper solution, a transmutation tablet and an extractor hooked together with a Steve makes for a pretty decent solution too. The transmutation tablet requires very few materials to make so it's a fairly easy to get investment and makes many, many things easier early on.
There is an item in Forestry called the tree tap, it's a static block that requires power, and will automatically extract rubber from nearby trees, when used in conjunction with a Logger and Arboretum you can make an automatic rubber farm.