English - McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program

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McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crops Research Project No: 06-741 Introduction: Most farmers are growing long duration trailing type of cowpea, and mostly around their homestead. They are mainly for getting leaves and few pods. The grain yields are usually very low due to low yield potentials of the cultivars and farmers do not spray against insect pests at flowering and podding, hence, most of the pods are lost. In addition, the local varieties are very susceptible to Alectra vogelii. The introduction of early, Alectra resistant and high yielding cowpea varieties will improve the nutritional status and increase income to the households by selling extra produced grain. There is high potential market for cowpea and for improving household nutritional status. Material and Methods: Due to shortage of cowpea seeds, five villages were selected for evaluation of five best selected cowpea lines from last season for Alectra resistance, adaptation and yield. Commercially released varieties Vuli-2 and Fahari were added and their village local checks. The villages involved were Mangalali and Mkungugu (Iringa region), Kikombo in Dodoma and other two villages were Msungua and Ikhanoda in Singida rural district. The plots planted were 4m by 4m and the yields and Alectra counts were collected from the whole plot, which were separated by one meter. Farmers wanted to have larger plots, but we were limited with amount of seed. With their chairman and secretary of the group and with assistance from extension officers farmers were able to collect data and evaluate the materials according to their criterion Results and discussion: As discussed under section 3.1 rains distribution was a major problem. It was late and erratic; hence there was very poor crop establishment such that many of farmers just managed to get few cowpea pods especially in Dodoma and Iringa sites. The other problem observed in Singida was for unforeseen outbreak of cut worms, which occurred at germination of the crop. Some farmers had to replant more than two times until they ran out of seed. In Singida rainfall started on time and it was relatively evenly distributed as compared to Dodoma and Iringa rural districts. The Alectra infestation was only reported on commercial and local cultivars, the other lines were observed free from the weed pest The yields recorded on few farmers who managed to get a crop are as presented in Table 3.. The average highest cowpea yield obtained was from Singida rural followed by Iringa and last Dodoma rural district. Table 3: The yield (kg/ha) performance of the 5 cowpea lines tested at five Villages, in Tanzania 2009 Cowpea line Farmer groups ir Mkungugu Kikombo Msungua Iringa Dodoma Singida IT99K-7-21-2-2-1 600 222 600 IT99K 573-2-1 720 440 600 IT97K 818-35 200 389 800 IT89KD 288 400 333 200 TZA 263 280 167 1200 VULI-2 560 - 600 FAHARI 800 - 760 Village Local 200 - 530 Mean 470.0 310.2 661.3 1.3.3b: Farmer Participatory Cowpea Lines Evaluation Introductions: Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L) Walp), is one of the African indigenous most important leguminous crops. It is mostly grown in tropical countries for various uses and is a cheap source of vegetable protein. The crop is well adapted to relatively dry and stressful growing conditions of the marginal land, but produces excellent nutritive value (Singh et al., 1997). It is a drought tolerant crop and recently, there has been an increasing demand of cowpeas in the human diet, as well as for income generation. It thus provides solution for periodic hunger in semi-arid region of Tanzania 6 2009
McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crops Research Project No: 06-741 This is the second season that the on farm evaluation of most promising lines of cowpea has been conducted in five villages namely; Msungua and Ikhanoda (Singida region), Kikombo (Dodoma region) and Mangalali and Mkungugu (Iringa region). Building from the 2008 evaluation, objectives of the 2009 evaluation were as follow: ~ To revisit the 2008 results ~ To revisit evaluation criteria used in 2008 ~ To evaluate cowpea lines planted in 2009 ~ To make informed conclusion to guide for the subsequent on farm evaluation This brief presents the outcome evaluation of farmers’ trials in five villages in the above mentioned districts Method: The evaluation mission comprised Dr A.M. Mbwaga (Pathologist), Dr J.K. Mligo (Legume breeder) and Dr J.P. Hella (Agricultural Economist). As in 2008, the team participated in the on-farm evaluation in all villages for a period between 17 th and 24 th May 2009. In 2008 evaluation involved traversing with farmers in all five villages in each plot planted with a known variety of cowpea. Farmers were then requested to list, based on their own experience, the criteria which govern them to value and prefer particular varieties than another variety. Although main criteria varied across villages, but mostly hanged on high yield, early maturity, resistant to pests including Alectra, big sized seed and white to cream colour. Observations Criteria for selecting cowpea cultivar by villages in 2008 Table 4 present the criterion used by farmers to rank different cowpea lines. The results were almost the similar in all villages. Good and more preferred lines are those associated with high yielding, early maturity, pest/disease (including Alectra) and drought resistant, large and white/cream seed colour. Table 4: Criteria for selecting different cowpea lines by village Msungua Ikhanoda Kikombo Mkungugu Mangalali Early maturity High yielding High yielding High yielding High yielding Resistance to Alectra, Early maturity Drought Large seeds Large seeds diseases/insects/pests resistance High yielding varieties with many leaves Cream color Early maturing Early maturity Early maturing Brown color Alectra Resistant to Tolerant to Alectra resistant Alectra Alectra tolerance Big size- seeds Big size seed Cream Seed Reddish seed Drought color colour resistance Large seeds Plenty green leaves Cowpea lines preferred by farmers in target villages 2008 Based on criteria highlighted in Table 4 above, in May 2008, farmers evaluated 14 lines including the commercial released varieties i.e. Vuli-2 and Fahari and locally grown cultivars named by the respective village name. List of cowpea lines evaluated in 2008 is presented in Table 5 below: Table 5: List of cowpeas line planted and evaluated in 2008 season No Lines/cultivar 1 IT 99K-7-21-2-2-1 2 IT 99K-573-1-1 3 IT 97K-499-8 4 IT 97K-818-35 5 IT 97K-819-118 6 IT 97K-499-38 7 2009
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English - McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program

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