Estimation of the Coefficient of Variation and Some Genetic Parameters of Some Landraces of Cowpea

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out during two successive summer seasons of years 2019 and 2020 at the Faculty of Agriculture (Saba Basha), Alexandria University and the laboratory of the vegetable seed of Sabahya Horticulture Research Station, Alexandria Governorate, Egypt to evaluate six local cultivars and landraces of cowpea for some morphological characters, yield and its components as well as estimate some genetic parameters. Results reflected obvious differences among the six genotypes of cowpea for most of the studied characters. The coefficient of variation (C.V.) was less than 10 % for all the studied traits in all genotypes of cowpea. These results indicate that the six genotypes of cowpea are genetically identical concerning these traits. Analysis of variance showed that variances of genotypes were highly significant in all studied traits. These findings refer to that there were highly variations between genotypes under study. Generally, the data prove that all of the studied traits could be improved through the selection method, but with different degrees of the improving depending upon the amount of variation present in each population. Meanwhile, mean squares of years were significant only in height of the first flower, this can be interpreted as this property being affected by the different environmental conditions in both years of the study. Cluster analysis, based on RAPD plus ISSR analysis, divided the 6 studied genotypes into 3 major groups. The first contained Geza and Kareem7 Cvs. with similarity of (30%), the second consisted of Fowa Lr. and Kaha Cv., and the third one contained the ones of Behira Lr. and Kafr Elshikh Cv.