Abstract
The present study allowed to characterize at agro-morphological level, eight (08) traditional cowpea accessions from Benin and Ghana in order to identify the best performing ones. The test was installed in a Randomized Complete Block (RCB) design with four (04) repetitions in a station in Savè in Center-Benin. The parameters studied are the date of flowering and maturation, the numbers of stems and leaflets per plant, the height of plants, the port of the stem, the lengths of pods and petiole, the weights of pods, tops, seeds and of 100 seeds, the seed yield, the colors of flowers, pods and seeds, the shapes of leaflets and of seeds, the size and the appearance of seeds. Xlsat version 2018.6 software was used for multi-component analysis to categorize accessions by their significant variables. SAS 9.2 software was used for the analysis of variance and the comparison of the means of variables. The number of branches, the length of the petiole, the height of the plants, the number of leaves, the length of the pods, the weights of the pods and of the tops had a positive influence on the cowpea seeds yield. The accessions were classified into three groups. The first group is made up of three (03) high-performance accessions, Nketewade, Mung bean lens and Songotra, with a short cycle of 61 to 62 days and a high yield of between 1050 kg/ha and 1300 kg/ha. The second group is that of the Djetoko and black eye bean accessions of long-cycle from 80 to 88 days, with a yield of between 620 kg/ha and 800 kg/ha. The third group is made up of false Cassoulet, Ennepa and Nsroma accessions with a short cycle of 62 to 65 days and a low yield of between 175 kg/ha and 230 kg/ha. Multilocal tests and genetic molecular characterization must be considered for a good valuation of these cowpea accessions.
Highlights
The development base of most sub-Saharan African countries has long relied on agricultural production, which remains the main source of income for people
The number of leaflets increased significantly to 94% on the Black eye bean accession compared to False Cassoulet, Nsroma and Ennepa accessions which had the lowest number of leaflets
The seeds yields of the varieties obtained in the framework of the present study which varied from 201.25 kg/ha to 1323.75 kg/ha are lower to the levels determined by other authors, which ranged from 517 kg/ha to 2696.50 kg/ha [24]
Summary
The development base of most sub-Saharan African countries has long relied on agricultural production, which remains the main source of income for people. In Ghana, cowpea is a major source of plant protein in the diet. It is eaten in the form of “tubaani”, a form of steamed pudding of cowpea and “waakye”, the equivalent of Benin's "atassi" or Togolese "ayimolou", a kind of mixture of rice and cowpea cooked together. It serves as a feeding for ruminants and fits well into crop assailing and rotation plans [3, 4]
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