Inheritance of Some Morphological Characters in Castor (Ricinus communis L.)

Abstract

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is an important non-edible oilseed crop of arid and semi-arid regions. Morphological characters, viz., leaf shape (cup shape vs flat), stem color (green, red and mahogany), bloom (single, double or triple), spike type (compact vs semi-compact), etc. are used as marker characters for identification of parents and hybrids during grow-out test. This communication concerns with the inheritance of anthocyanin pigmentation of stem, bloom, leaf shape and type of spike in castor. The experimental material for present study was selected from the germplasm maintained at Main Castor Research Station, Gujarat Agricultural University, Sardar Krushinagar. Six germinations (P, P₁, F₁, F₂, B₁ and B₂) of two diverse parents, viz. VP1 and Aruna, were raised and evaluated at Department of Plant Breeding, B. A. College of Agriculture, GAU, Anand during Kharif 1995-96, for various morphological characters.