Morphometry of castor bean seeds from the Durango State's arid zone, Mexico

Abstract

Ricinus communis yields oilseeds of great commercial importance to industry. The aim of this study was to generate morphometric information on seed size and shape of wild castor bean accessions collected in the Durango State’s arid zone, Mexico. Bivariate scatter plots were used to identify possible relationships between seed morphometric attributes. Principal component analysis allowed the identification of three seed groups that are highly dependent on shape attributes and volume. One group involves seeds with high volume, low eccentricity, high roundness and medium flatness. Another group includes seeds with medium volume, high eccentricity, medium roundness and high flatness. The last group involves seeds with small volume, eccentricity, roundness, and flatness with high dispersion. Relationships between seed area or volume with the axes of the seeds suggest that their shapes are complex. Knowledge of seed sizes and shapes can be helpful to design technical innovation for R. communis seed handling and storage in natural ecosystems and agricultural farms.

An index of environmental and cultural suitability for the cultivation of climate-resilient castor bean in rainfed low-productivity common lands in Mexico

“…In recent years, research related to the agriculture of castor beans in Mexico has started to develop (Armendáriz-Velázquez, 2012;Sagarpa, 2015;Isaza et al, 2017;Buendía-Tamariz et al, 2018;Peña-Uribe et al, 2021). However, there are no studies that integrate the social perception for the planning of agricultural land uses in ejidos.…”

Morphometric, weight, viability, and germination analysis of castor bean seeds (Ricinus communis) under two temperature and relative humidity conditions

“…Castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) is an allogamous plant (Euphorbiaceae, 2n20) native to tropical Africa. It spread out from Africa to the Middle East as a wild plant, giving birth to a wide range of different weights, sizes, shapes, and colors (Goytia-Jiménez et al, 2011;Peña-Uribe et al, 2021). In Mexico, castor bean is grown in the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Colima, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Estado de México, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Yucatán (Acosta-Navarrete et al, 2017;Barrios-Gómez et al, 2018;Solis Bonilla et al, 2016;Llaven Valencia et al, 2019;Canul et al, 2021).…”

“…From the diversity point of view -and in order to evaluate the variability between and within genotypes or species-, the morphometric characterization of plants (seeds and fruits) is based on the qualitative or quantitative values (Barrios-Gómez et al, 2018;Canul-Ku et al, 2022;Pecina-Quintero et al, 2013), the knowledge about sizes and shapes, and the useful data available. This information can be used to design innovative management and storage techniques in natural ecosystems and farms (Huang et al, 2022;Peña-Uribe et al, 2021). These measurement techniques include vision systems that have been implemented (Modarres Najafabadi and Farahani, 2012) to find out the morphometric dimensions of the objects, in order to generate databases (Acosta et al, 2013).…”