Castor

Mid-June to mid-July, with the onset of the monsoon. Sow only once the soil profile is properly wetted — dry-sown castor germinates poorly and unevenly, and gap-filling after day 15 rarely catches up with the rest of the stand.

Roughly 3.5–5 kg per acre (8–12 kg/ha) for a hybrid, dibbled one seed per hole at 90–120 cm × 40–60 cm rather than broadcast, since each hole is meant to grow into a single, well-spaced, heavily branching plant.

Because one castor plant does not ripen once — the primary spike at the top matures first, around 100–110 days after sowing, and then branch after branch keeps flowering and fruiting for months. A field is walked and picked in repeated rounds as each spike ripens in turn, running the full life cycle out to 200–240 days, rather than combined on a single harvest day like most other crops.

No. Castor is not among the seven oilseeds (groundnut, soyabean, sunflower, sesamum, nigerseed, rapeseed-mustard, safflower) that the CACP notifies an MSP for each year, because it is an industrial oilseed rather than an edible one — castor oil goes into lubricants, pharmaceuticals and biodiesel, not cooking. Its price is set entirely by crushing-mill and export demand for castor oil, so the live mandi price on this page is the most useful real-time signal for deciding when to sell.

Castor seed is 45–50% oil, and roughly 90% of that oil is ricinoleic acid, a fatty acid found in almost no other vegetable oil. That chemistry makes it valuable to industry rather than the kitchen: high-performance and aviation lubricants, pharmaceutical excipients and laxatives, biodiesel, nylon-11 engineering plastics, paints, coatings and cosmetics. The seed and cake are also toxic (they contain ricin) unless specially processed, which is another reason castor never enters the food-oil market.

GCH-7 and GNCH-1 suit fields with a wilt history, since both carry bred-in wilt tolerance or resistance; GCH-4 and GNCH-1 additionally tolerate jassid. GCH-8 has shown the widest adaptability and highest yield across both rainfed and irrigated trials. DCH-519 has the broadest recommended zone, released for cultivation across India rather than Gujarat specifically. Kranti is the one open-pollinated variety here, suited to rainfed, low-input, seed-saving systems. Match the hybrid to your field's disease history and irrigation access, and confirm with local advisory.

This is almost certainly Fusarium wilt, caused by the soil- and seed-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ricini — the single most destructive disease of castor in India, with reported losses up to 80–85% in susceptible, continuously cropped fields. There is no in-season cure; remove and destroy wilted plants, and next season grow a wilt-tolerant hybrid such as GCH-7 or GNCH-1, treat seed with Trichoderma or a fungicide, and rotate out of castor for 2–3 seasons on badly affected land.

That is grey mould, caused by the fungus Amphobotrys ricini (Botrytis ricini), which thrives in humid, cloudy, rainy weather during flowering and capsule development and can destroy an entire spike's yield within days. Spray a carbendazim + mancozeb combination at first appearance and repeat through the wet spell; wider spacing and prompt removal of infected spikes help prevent it recurring on the next flush.

Less than most kharif oilseeds once established — its deep taproot finds its own moisture, and 500–750 mm of rainfall or equivalent irrigation usually sees a rainfed crop through. The stage that cannot be skimped is flowering and spike formation (60–100 days), where moisture stress permanently cuts spike size and number. What castor truly cannot tolerate at any stage is standing water — even a day or two of waterlogging triggers root and stem rot.

A common recommendation is 60:30:30 kg/ha N:P₂O₅:K₂O for a rainfed hybrid, rising to about 90:45:45 kg/ha under irrigation, split across a basal dose and two top dressings at 30 and 60 days. Because castor keeps fruiting for months rather than ripening once, an irrigated crop grown past 180 days also gets roughly 20 kg N/ha at each successive picking from around 90 days onward — feeding through each flush, not just up to flowering, is unique to how this crop is grown.

That pattern — leaf-curling, yellowing and a scorched ("hopperburn") margin — points to castor jassid (leafhopper), a sap-sucking pest that stunts young plants and cuts the number of spikes they go on to set. Spray a recommended systemic insecticide such as imidacloprid at first sign, and consider a jassid-tolerant hybrid such as GCH-4 or GNCH-1 next season if the pressure is recurring on your field.

18–22 quintals per hectare for a hybrid under good management, tallied across the whole multi-picking season rather than a single harvest day. Top hybrids under close irrigated management in Gujarat have recorded 30 q/ha and more, while a rainfed, open-pollinated variety like Kranti yields noticeably less but costs less to grow and lets you save your own seed.

Only if you grew an open-pollinated variety such as Kranti. Every hybrid on this page — GCH-7, GCH-8, GCH-4, GNCH-1, DCH-519 — is F1 seed; the next generation grown from its own harvest segregates wildly and yields well below the parent hybrid. Buy fresh certified hybrid seed from an authorised dealer or the state seed corporation every season.

Castor is one of the most waterlogging-intolerant crops grown in India; its single deep taproot cannot tolerate standing water at the root collar for more than a day or two before root and stem rot set in and the plant collapses. The fix is prevention, not cure — sow on ridges or a raised bed rather than flat ground on any field without excellent natural drainage, since there is no effective in-season treatment once rot has set in.

Castor is covered under PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) where it is in your state's notified crop list for the season, with premiums capped at 2% of the sum insured for a kharif crop. PM-KISAN is not crop-specific — any eligible landholding farmer family qualifies regardless of what they grow. Check your state's seasonal notification and cut-off dates.

Most kharif oilseeds are combined or hand-harvested once, in a single window, and go straight into the edible-oil or food supply chain with an MSP behind them. Castor is picked in repeated rounds over 200–240 days as each spike ripens in turn, has no MSP because it is an industrial, non-edible oilseed, and is far less tolerant of waterlogging than most — the trade-off is a deep taproot that gives it better drought tolerance once established than almost anything else grown in the same season.