Variability and Genetic Divergence in Vegetable Cowpea Germplasm of Goa

Vegetable cowpea or Yard long bean [Vigna unguiculata var. sesquipedalis L. (Walp)] is a warm season leguminous crops grown especially for vegetable purpose along the west coast of India. In Goa, pole type varieties are preferred over bushy types as they offer multiple harvests with comparatively longer pods. There is wide variability found for different morphological and other traits in the local types cultivated in the state of Goa. Exploration of genetic variability in the available germplasm is a prerequisite for initiation of any successful breeding programme. Twenty nine genotypes of vegetable cowpea including three improved varieties collected from different parts of Goa state were evaluated for twelve quantitative characters including yield. High variability was observed for pod yield/plant, number of pods/plant and pod length. The high variability for pod yield per plant is apparent as the pod yield ranged from 315.25 to 2070.45 g/plant with an average of 827.48 g per plant. Pod yield depends on number of pods per plant, pod length and pod weight. Number of pods per plant ranged from 36.65 to 147.80. Pod weight depends on pod length, number of seeds per pod and hundred seeds weight. Wide variation was observed for all these characters in the present study. The GCV value was maximum for pod yield per plant (g) followed by pod weight (g) and number of pods per plant. Low values of GCV were observed for days to first flowering, days to first harvest and number of seeds per pod. In the present study, the twenty nine genotypes could be grouped into fourteen clusters based on genetic distance. High coefficient of variation was observed for pod yield per plant, pod weight, number of pods per plant and pod length indicating their significant contribution in determining the inter cluster distances.