Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad - 500 030, India.
1Dept. of Botany, S.V. University, Tripwdi - 517502, AP.
Field experiments were conducted during early summer seasons of 1995–96 and 1996–97 to study the performance of four castor cultivars (two varieties viz., DCS-9 and Aruna; and two hybrids viz., GCH-4 and DCH-30) at three different dates of sowing (Dec 20, Jan 5 and Jan 20). The results revealed that dry matter production, leaf area index, number of capsules per plant, length of primary spike, 100-seed weight, shelling percentage, seed and oil yields were significantly higher in the crop sown on Jan 5 and with hybrids. Highest gross and net returns were obtained with Jan 5 sown crop (Rs. 18219 and Rs. 4406/ha, respectively) and with hybrid DCH 30 (Rs. 20683 and Rs. 7241/ha, respectively).
