Characterization of Vigna vexillata (L.) Richard from Six African Countries
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Vigna vexillata (L.) Richard is a wild relative of cowpea characterized by heavy pubescence of the leaves,
stems and pods which could be utilized for genetic improvement of cowpea V unguiculata (L.) Walp.
Twenty-six (26) accessions collected from six African countries; Cameroun, Zaire, Ghana, Swaziland, Congo
and Nigeria were obtained from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (liT A), Ibadan, Nigeria for
morphological and cytological characterizations. Twenty-four morphological characters involving eighteen
quantitative and six qualitative characters were used for intra-specific variabilities among the accessions.
Young bud flowers were collected at the flowering stage for meiotic and mitotic chromosome behaviour of
the accessions. The results showed significant differences among vegetative and floral characters (p::::: 0.000)
while pod and seed characters do not show much variability. The high significant correlation among
characters such as calyx lobe length, standard petal length and width, peduncle length, days to 50%
flowering, days to pod maturity, pod length and width, number of locules per pod, number of seeds per pod,
and 1 00-seed weight indicates their suitability for breeding and genetic improvement purposes. The cluster
analysis using the UPGMA method segregated the 26 accessions into three main clusters; cluster I (super
group of 16 accessions), cluster II (9 accessions) and cluster III (1 isolated accession). All the accessions
analysed for cytological relationship presented 2n = 22 chromosomes as previously reported for the genus
Vigna. Chromosomes paired as bivalents and regular
Keywords
QH301 Biology