Characterization of available germplasm is a necessary step to facilitate breeding programs worldwide. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize twenty accessions of Cowpea from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria. The accessions were planted in a randomized complete block design with three replicates. The morphological characters of seedlings were assessed following the International Board for Plant Genetic Resource cowpea descriptor list (IBPGR) and twenty-nine descriptors were used. Eighteen accessions showed semi-erect habits while two showed erect plant growth habits. The number of Days to first flowering among the selected accessions was 35-45 while the number of days to first pod was 37-47. Peduncle length was observed to be 12-35 cm, Pod length was 10.61-22.81 cm while seed length was 6.10-9.93 cm among sampled accessions. Morphological assessment of the accessions showed a dendogram of three clusters with six (A), nine (B) and four (C) accessions respectively. One accession TVu-12501 formed an outgroup owing to the uniqueness of its terminal petiole length. The cluster analysis substantiated the existence of diversity among the twenty accessions for the morphological traits studied and posits TVu-12501 accession as a morphologically superior accession to be studied further for selection in breeding programmes in the West African region.
Key words: Characters, Cowpea, Diversity, IITA, Poaceae, Phenotype
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