1Department of Arid Land Agriculture, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, 80208, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
2Department of Vegetables, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, 71526, Assiut, Egypt
Department of Arid Land Agriculture, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, 80208, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
*Corresponding author's e-mail: m_a_ahmed@yahoo.com
Online published on 5 November, 2018.
A field experiment was conducted in 2013 and 2014 at the Agriculture Experimental Station of King Abdulaziz University to study the effects of water deficit treatments at different growth stages on growth, yield and IWUE on cowpea cultivars. Four water deficit treatments were applied T0 (no water deficit), T1 (at vegetative stage), T2 (at flowering and pod setting), T3 (at pod filling), T4 (at vegetative and flowering) and T5 (at flowering and pod filling). The cultivars ‘Balady’ under water deficit T1, T3 and T4 and ‘Cream7’under T1 and T2 produced the highest yield component parameters except number of pods/plant. The highest yield of dry seeds kg/ha was produced by the cultivars ‘Cream7’ under water deficit T1 and T3 and ‘Balady’ under T2. ‘Cream7’ and ‘Balady’ revealed the highest irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) under water deficit T1, T2 and T4. High seed yield of ‘Balady and ‘Cream7’ can be obtained by applying water deficit at vegetative stage (T1).
Cowpea, Growth, Irrigation water use efficiency, Water deficit, Yield
