Induction of a Cowpea Variety ‘Videza’ for Extra Earliness and Higher Yielding than Parental Control

Parental control cowpea variety “Videza” is early maturing (70 DAP) and acceptable by consumers but low yielding (48.65 g/ plant). Farmers prefer extra early maturing and higher yielding than “Videza”. Therefore there was a need to induce it to become extra-early maturing and higher yielding than original “Videza”. A single seed descend homogeneous“Videza” population was first developed for radio-sensitiivity test and LD50 of 240.5 Gy was determined. A mass irradiation of 5kg videza seeds at LD50 was administered acutely at a dose rate of 300 Gy/hr, from Co60 source at Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. The 0Gy dose served as a comparative control. The irradiated seeds (M1) were planted the following day to produce induced plants bearing M2 seeds. The M2 seeds were planted to produce induced plants bearing M3 seeds. The selected M3 seeds were again planted, in randomized complet block design, to produce induced plants bearing M4 seeds. They were characterized for extra early maturity and higher yielding paramers which were statistically analysed. In ascending order of earliness, it took 48DAP for genotypes P1N02#1 to reach 50% maturity followed by 52DAP for P4N03#3; P3N01#5; P5N05#6, P4N14#7, P5N07#8, P5N05#10 and 54 DAP for P4N14#11 to reach 50% maturity. In descending order of yield, it took 97.38 gram/plant, for genotype P1N06#9 to yield higher than control at 50% maturity, followed by 95.97 gram/plant for genotype P5N05#10, 81.24 for P1N08#13, 73.94 for P2N09#12, 70.83 for P6N10#19, 65.36 for P1N06#20, 61.42 for P5N07#14, 58.05 for P4N14#7 and 56.23 gram/plant for P1N08#17. Genotype P5N05#10 is advanced for multi-locatonal trials and release because it had both extra early maturing and higher yielding potential than the control. It also had an average of 38 pods per plant and 25.80 cm pod length while the parental control had 30 pods per plant and 15.5 cm pod length.