Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] Yield Variance and Supported Character

Cowpea is an underutilized legume that has been cultivating in Indonesia. But, the availability of cowpea variety is limited. Cowpea breeding program is started with gene source characterization of germplasm. This research aims to study the yield and its supported component variability of cowpea germplasm. One hundred and fifty cowpea accessions were planted using randomized block design with two replications. Observation was done for days of flowering, days of maturity, plant height, number of branches, number of pods per plant, pod length, number of seeds per pod, seed weights per plant, 100 seeds weight, and seed weights per plot. Statistic descriptive, analysis of variance, and was analyzed with MSTAT 1.4 version software, while path analysis was done with SPSS 19 version. Days of flowering was ranged 32-53 das, days of maturity 60-79 das, plant height 16-51.3 cm, number of branches 0-5, number of pods per plant 13-93, pod length 9.1-22.8 cm, number of seeds per pod 12-20, seed weight 7.47-76.17 g per plant, 100 seeds weight 4.19-18.5 g, and seed weight per plot 45.61346.58 g. There were significant differences between the genotype in leaf length x width, plant height, pod length, number of pods per plant, weight of 100 seeds, and seed weight per plot. All of the observed characters were correlated highly significant to yield, except days of maturity, leaf length x width, and pod length which correlated significantly, also number of branches and number of seeds per pod which not correlated significantly to yield. Selection was held for yield character using 20% selection index and there were 19 accessions selected, with 269.58-326.48 g seed yield per plot.