Abstract
ABSTRACT Cowpea beans (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp), is the most important legume in the Colombian Caribbean and is cultivated mainly by family-economy farmers under variable environmental conditions. This demands the identification of cultivars with greater adaptation and stability, since genotype - environment interaction (GEI) hinders the process of selection and recommendation of cultivars that, because of their genetic potential, exceed the current yield (600 kg ha-1). The objective of this study was to evaluate the adaptability and stability of 10 cowpea bean genotypes of semi-prostrate habit in eight environments of the Colombian Caribbean, during the years 2017B and 2018A; using the randomized complete block design with four repetitions. The analysis was performed using the additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) model. The results showed highly significant differences at the level of environments, genotypes and GEI. The first three axes of the interaction were significant, selecting the first two for accumulating 81.84% of the sum of squares of the genotype by environment interaction. Genotype 2 showed the greatest adaptability and stability, but its performance was slightly lower than the average; genotypes 6 and 10 presented the highest grain yields, but were influenced by the environments, with the best response in favorable environments. The best environments corresponded to VN8A and SA7B.
Highlights
Cowpea beans are the most important legume in the Colombian Caribbean, cultivated by small producers with Creole cultivars, which show low yield (600 kg ha-1) due to the use of non-certified seeds and susceptibility to abiotic factors such as drought, temperature, and biotics such as bacteria, weeds, insects, and fungi (PATRIYAWATY; RACHAPUTI; GEORGE, 2018; SINDHU et al, 2019).Among the species cultivated in semi-arid tropical and subtropical areas, cowpea beans stand out (KIRIGIA et al, 2018), with phenotypic plasticity which allows it to adapt to drought and high temperatures, to guarantee grain production, not all cultivars respond in the same way (ALVES-BARROS et al, 2013; EL-SHAIENY et al.,2015)
Yield is a characteristic of polygenic nature affected by the environment, which makes genetic improvement difficult (WALLE et al, 2019); in this sense, cowpea beans are cultivated in Colombia, in areas that show a wide variety of environmental conditions associated with the hydric state of the soil, fertility, solar radiation, temperature, types of soil and production technologies; that cause differential phenotypic values of the genotypes according to the environmental supply, a phenomenon called genotype-by-environment interaction (OLIVEIRA et al, 2017; SÁNCHEZ-RAMÍREZ; MENDOZACASTILLO; MENDOZA-MENDOZA, 2016)
The AMMI model considers that the effects of genotypes and environments are additive and linear, while the genotype - environment interaction (GEI) has multiplicative effects that can be studied by principal component analysis (EBDON; GAUCH JR, 2002)
Summary
Cowpea beans are the most important legume in the Colombian Caribbean, cultivated by small producers with Creole cultivars, which show low yield (600 kg ha-1) due to the use of non-certified seeds and susceptibility to abiotic factors such as drought, temperature, and biotics such as bacteria, weeds, insects, and fungi (PATRIYAWATY; RACHAPUTI; GEORGE, 2018; SINDHU et al, 2019). It is sensitive to drought stress, especially in the flowering period (GULL; SOFI; ARA, 2019), affecting yield components (MEENA; RAM-KRISHNA; SINGH, 2015), which could be aggravated by the omens of the effects of climate change and climate variability on agriculture (IPCC, 2014) In this sense, studies carried out by Singh et al (2010), in cowpea beans, showed that the interaction between CO2, temperature and ultra violet rays differentially affect cultivars, especially in the reproductive stage, with reduction in the number of fruiting branches, pollen viability and, the yield, which depends on the time of stress (SAGE et al, 2015). The objective of this study was to evaluate the adaptability and stability of cowpea bean genotypes of semi-prostrate habit, under environmental conditions of the Caribbean region of Colombia
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