Heritable relationship and variability of yield and yield determinants in cow pea

Abstract

The legume crop, cowpea is grown as one of the most important multipurpose grain legume extensively cultivated in arid, semi-arid and subtropics. This study was carried out with 22 diverse varieties / Genotypes of cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp], grown during Kharif season. These genotypes were obtained from the Director, Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi (U.P.).Maximum phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation were observed for seed yield per plant followed by number of clusters per plant, pods per plant, pod length, number of seeds per pod, green pod weight plant and plant height, This indicated the presence of high magnitude of genetic variability in the material for these characters. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance were recorded in character viz- seed yield per plant, plant height, days to 80% maturity, green pod weight, days to 50% flowering and pods per plant indicated that these traits were mostly controlled by additive gene action. The seed yield per plant showed positive correlation with pod length, number of cluster per plant and pods per plant while exhibited negative correlation with no. of primary branches, days to 50% flowering and days to 80% maturity exhibited negative correlation with seed yield per plant at genotypic and phenotypic level. Using the characters having high heritability coupled with high genetic advance has low influence to environment where as positive correlation of those characters with yield directly enhance yield of cowpea.