Evaluation of two castor bean cycles in Morelos, Mexico: sowing and regrowth

Abstract

In Mexico grows the interest of castor oil plant production for the production of castor oil and biodiesel. There are few varieties released in Mexico, most are imported at a high cost, so the evaluation of elite materials that could be used for planting is of great importance. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the agronomic behavior of sixteen materials (T) of castor oil plant in a seed cycle with respect to regrowth under conditions of the dry tropics in Morelos, Mexico. In the seed cycle, the flowering of early genotypes occurred 40 days after sowing (dds) and the later ones at 72 dds. The T8 genotype had high values in plant height (4 m) and stem diameter (8.3 cm); on the contrary, T10 showed low values: 2.3 m and 4.1 cm, respectively. The T1 presented fruits with greater width and length, 2.7 and 2.5 cm and seeds of 1.8 and 1.4 cm. In the seed weight per plant, T1 obtained the highest value with 866.6 g and T12 the lowest, with 171.1 g. The materials T1, T2, T3 and T4 obtained better results in the regrowth cycle, showed little reduction for plant height, stem diameter, number of shoots, length and width of fruit and seed, number of bunches and fruits, weight of one hundred seeds, total weight of fruits and seeds per plant. The average of the regrowth cycle with respect to the seed cycle decreased 19.3% in the registered variables. The best production cycle was obtained in the first harvest from seed.