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COWPEA (VIGNA UNGUICULATA) CROPS IN AFRICA CAN RESPOND TO INOCULATION WITH RHIZOBIUM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2016

ROBERT M. BODDEY ,
MATHIAS FOSU ,
WILLIAMS K. ATAKORA ,
CESAR H. B. MIRANDA ,
LUCIA H. BODDEY ,
ANA PAULA GUIMARAES  and
BENJAMIN D. K. AHIABOR
ROBERT M. BODDEY*
Affiliation:
Embrapa Agrobiologia, Rodovia BR 465, km 07, Seropédica, 23891-000, RJ, Brazil
MATHIAS FOSU
Affiliation:
CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), P.O. Box 52, Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana
WILLIAMS K. ATAKORA
Affiliation:
CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), P.O. Box 52, Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana
CESAR H. B. MIRANDA
Affiliation:
Embrapa Mozambique, Av. Francisco Manyanga, 230, Nampula, Mozambique
LUCIA H. BODDEY
Affiliation:
Embrapa Agrobiologia, Rodovia BR 465, km 07, Seropédica, 23891-000, RJ, Brazil
ANA PAULA GUIMARAES
Affiliation:
Embrapa Agrobiologia, Rodovia BR 465, km 07, Seropédica, 23891-000, RJ, Brazil
BENJAMIN D. K. AHIABOR
Affiliation:
CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), P.O. Box 52, Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana
*
‡Corresponding author. Email: robert.boddey@embrapa.br; Contact address: Embrapa Agrobiologia, BR 465, km 07, Seropédica, 23891-000, RJ, Brazil.
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Summary

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) is the most important food grain legume in Africa. Cowpea is nodulated by rhizobium bacteria in almost all soils of the tropics, but studies performed in the 1970s and 1980s in Nigeria suggested only modest responses of grain yield in the field to inoculation of selected rhizobium strains. More recently, experiments performed in Brazil have shown that cowpea responded to inoculation of rhizobium selected locally and grain yields increased by up to 30%. We tested some of the Brazilian strains on cowpea at a site in northern Mozambique and at several sites in Northern Ghana. At all sites phosphorus fertilizer (26 kg P ha−1) was added to all plots. At the site in Mozambique despite considerable damage to the crop by the parasitic yellow witchweed (Alectra vogelii), grain yields were more than doubled by inoculation of one of the Brazilian strains and reached 1.4 Mg ha−1. In on-station experiments conducted in 2012 in June and August in northern Ghana using the local cowpea variety Padi-Tuya as the test crop, nodule weight at 35 days after planting (dap) tripled with rhizobium strain BR 3299 (530 mg plant−1) in August with the other inoculants (BR 3267 and a mixture of BR 3267 and BR 3299) also increased nodule weight to over 300 mg plant−1. In the first on-station experiment, grain yields were doubled by the inoculation of any of the three rhizobium strains, and in the second experiment, significant increases in grain yield ranged from 39% to 57% and reached over 2.0 Mg ha−1. Similar increases in nodulation and grain yield due to inoculation were observed in 22 on-farm trials. Nitrogen fertilizer application promoted vegetative growth but did not increase grain yield and nodulation. Inoculating cowpea with highly effective rhizobium strains can therefore enhance grain yield of smallholder farmers in Africa.

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Agriculture , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 578 - 587
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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