last final thesis of umer

Significantly higher number of pods per cowpea plant (14.33) was obtained from sole than
intercropped cowpea (12.37) (Table 14). The decrease in number of pods per plant might be due
to the competition effect of maize component. Carruthers et al. (2000) related this situation to the
reduction of photosynthesis due to shading of associated crops to a level that the legume plants
compensated by decreasing the amount of assimilate allocation to reproductive growth or grain
production. In line with this result, Teshome et al. (2015) reported significantly high number pod
per plant for sole crop compared with intercropped soybean in maize/soybean intercropping.
Number of seeds per pod
Number of seeds per pod was significantly (p<0.05) affected by cowpea variety while plant
density, cropping system and interaction effects did not significantly (p>0.05) affect the trait
(Appendix Table 6).The highest number of seeds per pod (16.50) was recorded from Kenketi
variety while the lowest (11.89) was recorded from Bole variety(Table 14). The variation in
number of seed per pod observed due to varieties might be due to the difference in inherent
characters of the varieties. The same result was reported by Mitiku and Getachew (2017) who
found highly significant effect of common bean varieties on number of seed per pod of common
bean varieties in rice/common bean intercropping. However, Teshome et al. (2015) on
maize/soybean found non-significant effect of soybean varieties on number of seeds per pod of
soybean varieties. Moreover Sisay (2004) on sorghum/green gram intercropping and Dechasa
(2005) on sorghum/bean intercropping reported non-significant effect on number of seeds per pod
of the legume components due to planting density of the legume crop. Biruk (2007) also found on
sorghum-common bean that seed pod -1 of common bean did not vary significantly in terms of
cropping system.
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