Date of Graduation

12-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences

Advisor/Mentor

Shi, Ainong

Committee Member/Reader

Mason, Richard

Committee Member/Second Reader

Wood, Lisa

Committee Member/Third Reader

Worthington, Margaret

Abstract

The objective of the study was to compare and correlate the Arkansas cowpea breeding lines to the USDA cowpea germplasm accessions on the following morphological traits: seed color, pod length, number of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, and seed density. The seed density is defined as the weight of seed in gram per centimeter of pod length. Three hundred seventeen cowpea genotypes were used in this experiment. Out of the 317, 285 germplasm accessions were from the USDA GRIN and 32 lines were from the Arkansas breeding program.

T-test between Arkansas breeding lines and USDA germplasm accessions were done to compare the two. The Arkansas breeding lines had a higher 100 seed weight than the USDA germplasm accessions. However, the USDA germplasm accessions had a higher seed number per pod and seed density than the Arkansas breeding lines. The Arkansas breeding lines did not differ from the USDA germplasm in the pod length.

The correlation analysis among the five traits showed the seed number per pod was highly positively correlated with seed density, while the pod length was highly negatively correlated with 100 seed weight. The pod length was moderately positively correlated with 100 seed weight, while the seed density was moderately negatively correlated with 100 seed weight. The seed number per pod and 100 seed weight were not correlated. The seed number per pod and pod length were not correlated. Seed color was not correlated to any of the mentioned morphological traits.

From this study, several potential USDA germplasm accessions were found to have favorable morphological traits. PI666260 (29.00 g), PI592374 (25.3 g), and 09.481 (25.00 g) had high the seed weight; PI582417 (30.5 cm), PI578902 (26.1 cm) and PI427093 (26.0 cm) had long pod; PI352997, PI527561, PI367921, PI292898, PI527302, PI152195 (18 seeds per pod) and PI582697 and PI291140 (19 seeds per pod) had more seed per pod; and PI582932 (1.25 g/cm), PI583202 (1.19 g/cm), and PI339603 (1.19 g/cm) had high seed density.

Keywords

cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), morphological trait

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