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A survey of the castor oil content, seed weight and seed-coat colour on
the United States Department of Agriculture germplasm collection

Article  in  Plant Genetic Resources · December 2010

DOI: 10.1017/S1479262110000262

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q NIAB 2010 Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization (2010) 8(3); 229 –231
ISSN 1479-2621 doi:10.1017/S1479262110000262

Short Communication

A survey of the castor oil content, seed

weight and seed-coat colour on the United
States Department of Agriculture germplasm
collection
M. L. Wang1*, J. B. Morris1, D. L. Pinnow1, J. Davis2, P. Raymer3
and G. A. Pederson1
1
USDA– ARS, PGRCU, 1109 Experiment Street, Griffin, GA 30223, USA, 2Department of
Experimental Statistics, University of Georgia, Griffin, GA 30223, USA and 3Crop and Soil
Sciences Department, University of Georgia, Griffin, GA 30223, USA

Received 28 May 2010; Accepted 8 July 2010 – First published online 23 July 2010

Abstract
Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is an important non-edible oilseed crop that can potentially be
used as feedstock for biodiesel production. There are 1033 accessions in the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) castor germplasm collection. The range of oil content in
these accessions has never been surveyed. For exploiting castor as a feedstock for biodiesel
production, the entire USDA castor collection was procured from the National Plant
Germplasm System (Germplasm Resources Information Network) and the oil content was
measured with nuclear magnetic resonance. The variation of oil content among all castor
accessions ranged from 37.2 to 60.6% with an average of 48.2%. One hundred seed weights
were determined and seed-coat colour was also recorded from each accession. One hundred
seed weight ranged from 10.1 to 73.3 g with an average of 28.3 g. There was a significant
correlation between seed weight and oil content but the correlation value was low
(r ¼ 0.1572, P , 0.0001). Fifty accessions with a wide range of oil content were selected to
be field grown for further evaluation. The results obtained from this survey will be useful
for castor breeders seeking germplasm accessions with high oil content in the collection.

Keywords: nuclear magnetic resonance method; oil content; Ricinus communis germplasm; USDA collection

Experimental
Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is an important non-edible
oilseed crop. Castor seeds are poisonous to humans and
animals because they contain ricin, which can
inhibit protein synthesis by inactivation of ribosomes
* Corresponding author. E-mail: mingli.wang@ars.usda.gov
(Vietta and Uhr, 1985). However, castor oil has multiple
uses including medicinal, as an ingredient in shampoo,
soap, hand lotion, high-speed lubricant and as a coating
material (Morris, 2004). Due to its high oil content, castor
has recently drawn attention for biodiesel production.
The US castor germplasm collection contains 1033 acces-
sions collected or donated from 48 countries. The oil con-
tent for these accessions has never been completely
surveyed. Therefore, the objectives of this study were
to determine the variability of oil content among 1033
230 M. L. Wang et al.

accessions within the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA) collection by a non-destructive
method and to identify accessions with a wide range
of oil content for further experimentation, confirmation
and utilization.
To survey the oil content, available seeds in the
entire USDA collection were obtained from two
locations: 364 accessions from the USDA –ARS, Plant
Genetic Resources Conservation Unit, Griffin, GA, USA
and 669 accessions from the USDA –ARS, National
Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, Fort Collins,
CO, USA. The oil content was measured using a Mini-
spec mq10 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyzer
(Bruker Optics Inc., Houston, TX, USA). All accessions
were measured in triplicate (25 seeds for each replica-
tion) to verify the precision of the NMR signal. The
castor oil content was averaged from three replications.
The NMR analyzer was operated at a resonance fre-
quency of 9.95 MHz and was maintained at 408C. Our
preliminary experimental results indicated that even
small differences in sample temperature can have a
substantial effect on the NMR signal of castor oil
(Fig. 1). To avoid the effects of temperature fluctuations
on samples, all samples were tempered to 408C for
90 min before measurements. In addition to oil content,
100-seed weight and seed-coat colour were also
recorded. For data analysis, an analysis of variance
was performed and means were separated using
Tukey’s multiple comparison procedure.
The results for oil content, 100-seed weight, seed-coat
colour and country of origin were listed in Supplemen-
tary Table S1 (available online only at http://journals.
cambridge.org). The oil content of castor in the USDA
collection ranged from 37.2 to 60.6% with an average of
48.2%. Tukey’s studentized range (honestly significant
differences (HSD)) test for oil content was 0.5927%.
The variation range and sample distribution of oil content
generally formed a normal distribution (Fig. 2). Most of
the samples had an oil content averaging 48%. Only
five samples (NSL 86 416, PI 167238, PI 250573, PI
384013 and PI 274773) had extremely low oil content
(, 39%) and two samples (NSL 15 621 and PI 240673)
had extremely high oil content (. 57%). These accessions
would be useful breeding materials for developing high
or low oil content castor cultivars. A significant variation
for 100-seed weight was detected in the collection, ran-
ging from 10.1 to 73.3 g with an average of 28.3 g.
Tukey’s Studentized Range (HSD) test for 100-seed
weight was 7.41 g (Table S1). There was a significant cor-
relation between seed weight and oil content but the cor-
relation value was low (r ¼ 0.1572, P , 0.0001).
180

160
70.00
19°C
N = 1033
20°C 140 Mean = 48.2%
60.00 22.5°C Median = 48.3%
23°C Max = 60.6%
120
Min = 37.2%
Number of accessions

24.5°C
50.00
40°C
100
NMR signal

40.00
80

30.00 60

20.00 40

20
10.00

0
<39
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
>60

0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 Oil content (%)
Oil mass (g)
Fig. 2. The range and sample distribution of oil content in
Fig. 1. Effect of temperature on nuclear magnetic resonance the entire United States Department of Agriculture castor
(NMR) signals. germplasm collection.
Survey of castor seed from USDA germplasm
Discussion
Our results for oil content were similar with a previous
published report (da Siliva Ramos et al., 1984). They
reported oil content ranging from 39.6 to 59.5% with an
average of 51.6%. The slight difference between these
two reports may come from the number of samples
tested and the location of samples collected. In their
study, only 36 samples were surveyed but the samples
were harvested from the same location in the same
year. In our study, 1033 samples were surveyed; how-
ever, the samples were harvested from different locations
in different years. We suggest that a wider range of oil
content variation (37.2–60.6%) among castor accessions
in our study occurred because more number of acces-
sions were surveyed. In addition, the correlation between
seed weight and oil content with a low value was shown
statistically significant (r ¼ 0.1572, P , 0.0001). This was
also due to more number of accessions being surveyed
in our study.
Our preliminary results indicate that significant
variability in oil content and 100-seed weight has been
View publication stats
231
detected among accessions within the USDA castor
germplasm collection. Thus, using the accessions iden-
tified in this study with high oil content in breeding
programmes may help breeders to develop high oil
castor cultivars for biodiesel production.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Brandon Tonnis and Jessica Norris
for their excellent assistance with the oil content analysis.
References
da Siliva Ramos LC, Tango JS, Savi A and Lea NR (1984)
Variability of oil and fatty acid composition in castorbean
varieties. Journal of American Oil Chemistry Society 61:
1841 – 1843.
Morris JB (2004) Phytochemical traits in the genetic resources
of castorbean. Current Topics in Plant Biology 5: 63 –67.
Vietta ES and Uhr JW (1985) Immunotoxins: redirection nature’s
poisons. Cell 41: 653 – 654.