ABSTRACT
Ricinus communis L. is a non-edible oil seed crop that resembles spurge (Euphorbiaceae). There are several commercial and medicinal uses for castor oil, which is extracted from castor seeds. Castor oil output can be boosted by boosting the number of seeds produced per plant, seed shape and size, or oil quantity. Because biotic and abiotic stresses have a significant impact on these features, breeding for increased stress resistance is an essential objective. Castor bean improvement also has ricin content reduction as a top priority. In the main growing regions, reports of a variety of biotic factors including fungal infections (such as leaf spot of castor, leaf blight disease, seedling blight, and powdery mildew disease), viral infections and abiotic factors including cold, heat, salt, drought, metal toxicity and fluctuating light have been described. These factors have resulted in significant global yield losses. As the genome sequence of castor is already complete, with an estimated size of 320 Mb with 31,237 gene models, it will give a huge thrust in castor stress breeding improvement. Emerging engineering methods like CRISPR/Cas9- based genome editing are anticipated to make castor bean more resistant to biotic and abiotic stressors. To reach the maximum yield potential of the castor bean, modern biotechnological techniques and cutting-edge genomes, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics strategies will pave the way to combat disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance tactics.
