Abstract:
Forty-five cowpea accessions, randomly selected from cowpea
germplasm from four cowpea-growing regions of Ghana, namely, Upper
East, Upper West, Northern and Eastern Regions, were characterized
and evaluated at the Plant Genetic Resources Unit of the Crops
Research Institute at Bunso with the objective to determine the
range of variability in the samples with respect to vegetative,
inflorescence and fruit characters. The variability in the samples
was used to initiate hybridization among some selected accessions
from the collection. Subsequently heterosis was determined for
flowering and maturity dates and yield and yield components in four
crosses among the selected accessions with the view to improving
the yield.
Large variability was observed in most of the qualitative
characters, particularly growth habit, twining tendency, plant and
pod pigmentation, raceme position, pod attachment to peduncle and
flower colour of the germplasm. The accessions differed
significantly in their days to flowering and maturity, peduncle
length, number of peduncles per plant, number of pods per plant,
pod length, number of seeds per plant, 100-se.ed weight and grain
yield per plant. There were also significant between- aod withinregion
differences I'n these characters.
t Heterosis for pods per plant .and grain yield per plant in all
the four crosses was positive and high. This was
particularly so for grain yield per plant for the cross between
accessions 87/27 and 87/157 in which heterosis was about 130%. The possibility of using accessions 87/27 and 87/157 for future
improvement programmes of the crop is discussed based on their
performance in this work.
