Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LXIV, Issue 2
Written by Cristina MELUCĂ, Rodica STURZU, Jeni-Mădălina COJOCARU, Viorel ION
Castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) is a rustic, drought-resistant plant, with great adaptability to different climatic and soil conditions. Currently, it is known for the versatility of the oil extracted from its seeds, where expectations of rising demand for castor oil in the world market is high. In terms of the crop technology, it has to be considered that there are a number of variables for each growing area, especially when it is desired to adapt the castor bean crop at a certain soil tillage system. In this respect, the objective of the present paper is to put into evidence the effects of different soil tillage on the castor bean crop under the specific growing conditions from South Romania. In this respect, a field experiment was established in the years 2019 and 2020 at the Agricultural and Development Research Station Teleorman (ADRS Teleorman) located in South Romania (Teleorman county). The experimental variants were represented by the soil tillage with the following graduations: 1. Summer plowing performed at 30 cm depth + harrowing performed with a disc harrow in autumn, at 12 cm depth + 2 works of seedbed preparation performed with a seedbed cultivator in spring, before sowing, at 10 cm depth; 2. No tillage; 3. Harrowing performed with a disc harrow in spring, before sowing, at 15 cm depth; 4. Deep tillage performed with a ripper in autumn, at 35 cm depth + harrowing performed with a disc harrow for seedbed preparation in spring, before sowing, at 12 cm depth. The obtained results indicate that the conventional soil tillage is superior to the variants of minimum tillage, which implies giving up to plowing, or direct sowing, which implies no-tillage.
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