COWPEA VARIETY

This study was carried out to evaluate the seed yield of cowpea varieties grown in a screen house in Benin City, Edo state. The study was conducted at the Faculty of Agriculture Research and Experimental Farm, University of Benin, Benin city. Nine (9) cowpea varieties were collected from the Institute for Agriculture Research (IAR), Samaru Zaria and two (2) from an open market on Benin City. The experiment was laid in a completely randomized design (CRD) with eleven treatments and three replications. Data on pod length, number of seeds, total number of pods, weight of seeds and pod weight were collected. The data collected were analyzed using SAS version 9.0. Pod length was highest (13.54) in S19 and lowest in 1.1. There were significant differences among all the cowpea varieties for the measured variable except number of seeds. However, several varieties were statistically equal in performance for all the variables. Samaru varieties were better than the open market varieties in all cases hence it is
recommended to sow with samaru varieties.