Heritable Relationships and Variability of Yield and Yield Components in Vegetable Cowpea

Abstract

Six populations from two crosses of vegetable cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp) were studied for heritable relationships between yield and yield components. Highly significant differences were observed for all traits. Phenotypic coefficient ofvariation was higher than the corresponding genotypic coefficient of variation, indicating the influence of genotype x environment interaction in the expression of all characters. Broad and narrow sense heritability estimates were determined for pod length (71 and 65%, cross 1; 66 and 52%,cross 2),for number of seeds pod" (74 and 52%,cross 1; 76 and 52% cross 2), and for number of peds plant:' (64 and 49%, cross 1; 69 and 49% , cross 2). Although the heritability values Cow pod length were relatively high, the non-significant genotypic correlation of pod length with grain yield seems to negate its usefulness as a trait for improvement of yield. The moderate to high heritability values of pods plant" and seeds podol and their highly significant positive correlation with yield suggested that pods plant and seeds pod-' are major yield contributing components.