Genetic Variability Studies of Diverse Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) Genotypes

The experimental material was comprised of 15 genotypes of cowpea. The analysis of variance revealed highly significant variance for all the traits depicting greater variability in the existing material. The Phenotypic coefficient variance and Genotypic coefficient variance were highest for characters viz., number of flower cluster per plant (49.79% and 47.57%), number of pods per plant (35.69% and 34.24%), number of pods per cluster (27.86%and 25.44%), number of branches at 30 DAS (24.94%), pod weight (24.81% and 23.79%), and pod length (23.83% and 23.62%). Heritability estimates were observed very high for pod length (98.29%), number of pods per plant (92.04%), pod weight (91.98%), number of flower clusters per plant (91.28%) and pod width (91.78%). The highest estimate of genetic advance as percentage of mean was recorded for number of flower clusters per plant (93.63%) followed by number of pods per plant (67.67%), pod length (48.24%), number of pods per cluster (47.84%), pod weight (47.01%), pod width (38.17%), number of flowers per cluster (36.49%), number of branches after 30 days of sowing (21.68%), pod yield per plot (21.55%), pod yield per ha (21.55%) and pod yield per plant (20.86%).