Evaluation of Drought Tolerance in Arkansas Cowpea Lines at Seedling Stage

Abstract

<jats:p>Cowpea [<jats:italic>Vigna unguiculate</jats:italic> (L.) Walp.] is not only a healthy, nutritious, and versatile leguminous crop; it also has a relatively high adaptation to drought. Research has shown that cowpea lines have a high tolerance to drought, and many of them can survive more than 40 days under scorching and dry conditions. The cowpea (Southern pea) breeding program at the University of Arkansas has been active for more than 50 years and has produced more than 1000 advanced breeding lines. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the drought-tolerant ability in Arkansas cowpea lines and use the drought-tolerant lines in cowpea production or as parents in cowpea breeding. A total of 36 University of Arkansas breeding lines were used to screen drought tolerance at the seedling stage in this study. The experiment was conducted in the greenhouse using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with two replicates, organized in a split-plot manner, where the drought treatment (drought and nondrought stress) as the main plot and the cowpea genotypes as the subplot. Drought stress was applied for 4 weeks, and three drought-tolerant–related traits were collected and analyzed. Results showed that cowpea breeding lines: ‘17-61’, ‘17-86’, ‘Early Scarlet’, and ‘ARBlackeye #1’ were found to be drought tolerant.</jats:p>

Phenotyping diverse cowpea genotypes reveals shoot traits contributions to drought recovery

“…In this study, we observed that drought stress caused progressive declines in the growth rate of cowpea genotypes to slow down as the stress becomes intense with signi cant variation among the genotypes, as evident in the reduction in plant height and number of trifoliates. A similar decline in the growth rate of cowpea under drought stress at seedling was also observed in 36 cowpea breeding lines evaluated at the breeding program at the University of Arkansas (Cui et al, 2020), suggesting that growth performance could be reliably used to discriminate the seedling drought stress responses in cowpea. Reduction in trifoliate under stress have been proposed to be a stress coping strategy by cowpea (Cui et al, 2020;Ravelombola et al, 2020).…”

“…A similar decline in the growth rate of cowpea under drought stress at seedling was also observed in 36 cowpea breeding lines evaluated at the breeding program at the University of Arkansas (Cui et al, 2020), suggesting that growth performance could be reliably used to discriminate the seedling drought stress responses in cowpea. Reduction in trifoliate under stress have been proposed to be a stress coping strategy by cowpea (Cui et al, 2020;Ravelombola et al, 2020). As exempli ed in this research, few drought-tolerant plants stopped growing, and shed their leaves to conserved moisture by reducing surface area for transpiration to survive the period of drought.…”

“…Our main aim was to identify seedling drought tolerant lines and genotypic components of the seedling responses to drought stress. The wooden box technique has been shown in previous studies to be useful for evaluating a large number of genotypes such as Recombinant inbred lines (RILs) and landraces (Agbicodo et al, 2009;Alidu et al, 2019;Cui et al, 2020;Ravelombola et al, 2018Ravelombola et al, , 2020Verbree et al, 2015).…”

Constraints and Prospects of Improving Cowpea Productivity to Ensure Food, Nutritional Security and Environmental Sustainability

“…Numerous studies have been done and are also on-going due to the enormity of drought stress challenges on cowpea productivity enhancement. In a study by Cui et al (2020), they evaluated cowpea drought tolerance potentials at seedling stage. The experiment was done using a total of 36 cowpeabreeding lines in a completely randomized manner under drought stress conditions.…”

Cowpea leaf width correlates with above ground biomass across diverse environments

“…Only in some erect varieties produced for grain could lodging become an issue (Cui et al, 2020;Sindhu et al, 2019). The path analysis also showed that chlorophyll content estimated by a SPAD meter had positive direct effect on plant AGB when measured in the field (Figure 5).…”