GENETIC VARIABILITY AND INTER-CHARACTERS ASSOCIATIONS STUDIES IN THE GERMPLASM OF COWPEA [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp] IN FRAGILE CLIMATE OF WESTERN RAJASTHAN, INDIA

The 33 indigenous and exotic accessions of cowpea were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with three replications during summer and kharif seasons of fragile climate of Rajasthan to estimate the presence of genetic variability, inter-characters associations, to identify a suitable short duration accession for cultivation during summer and to compare the relative performance of the genotypes in two seasons.  The high degree of genetic variability was estimated during both seasons for seed yield per plant (g), 100-seed weight (g.), pod length, number of seeds per pod, number of pods per plant, number of pods per cluster, number of branches per plant, number of cluster per plant, plant height (cm.), number of days to 50% flowering and number of days to maturity. The moderate to high heritabilities coupled with moderate to high expected genetic advance were observed for  all studied traits. Number of seeds per pod, number of pods per plant, number of pods per cluster, number of cluster per plant, days to 50% flowering and days to maturity had positive and significant correlations with seed yield per plant. The accession C-720 had been identified to be of short duration of 62 days.  The accessions C-791, C-896, C-721, C-1023, and C-727 during summer season and accessions C-791, C-731, C-875, C-720 and C-1023 during kharif season exhibited superiority in terms of seed yield per plant over best check.