Abstract
Wild relatives of crop species are often sources of genes for diseases and insect pest resistance, increased yield, improved quality, earliness and wide adaptation. Wild subspecies of cowpea that are cross-compatible with cultivated varieties have great potential as an additional source of useful germplasm for cowpea improvement. In this study, the variations in the growth and agronomic traits of 20 cowpea accessions from the subspecies: stenophylla, dekindtiana and tenuis were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with four replications. Highly significant variations were observed among accessions for all traits measured. There were variations for same traits among the accessions from the subsp. dekindtiana whereas, the accessions from the subspecies stenophylla and tenuis showed similar performance. Accession TVNu1839 from the subsp. dekindtiana showed an outstanding performance in number of days to flowering and pod ripening, number of main branches at flowering, number of seeds per pod, 100 - seed weight and total seed weight which implies that the accession has a high yield potential. Therefore, the subsp. dekindtiana may be a useful source of genetic variation needed for the development of improved cowpea varieties for resource poor farmers at a relatively low expense, since it has been established that they are cross-compatible with the cultivated varieties. Highly significant (P < 0.001) and very strong correlation coefficient among traits, may be useful as selection index and can be exploited in cowpea improvement programmes. These results confirm that wild cowpea subspecies have the potential to enhance cowpea gene pool.
Highlights
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walpers), is a leguminous plant grown throughout the African countries as well as in Southeast Asia, North and South America, though the centre of diversity is West Africa [1,2]
A wide range of significant (P < 0.001) variation was observed in plant height (47.00 - 266.50 cm), number of days to pod ripening (27 - 108 days), and number of days to first flower (22 - 97 days) (Table 2)
Accession TVNu290 had the highest mean value for number of ovules per pod and number of seeds per pod while the lowest values for both traits was observed in accession TVNu539, both belonging to the subsp. dekindtiana (Table 2)
Summary
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walpers), is a leguminous plant grown throughout the African countries as well as in Southeast Asia, North and South America, though the centre of diversity is West Africa [1,2]. Wild relatives of cowpea that are cross compatible with the cultivated varieties may be a potential additional source of variation for cowpea improvement [24,25,26]. These variabilities can be exploited for the improvement of quantitative and qualitative traits [27,28]. To achieve efficient utilization of cowpea genetic resources there must be documented information on the magnitude of variability existing for different traits This will enable identification of promising wild relatives useful in crop improvement programmes and related researches. The present research evaluates the agronomic performance and association of traits among cowpea wild subspecies
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