Heritability estimates and correlations of agronomic characters in cowpea (Vigna sinensis L.)

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Abstract
Summary: Heritability in the broad sense and correlations were determined for six agronomic traits in cowpea (Vigna sinensis L.) using four parental and six F2 lines. Heritability values were found to be 75, 64, 47, 44, 35 and 15% for 100-seed weight, number of seeds per pod, number of clusters per plant, number of pods per plant, yield per plant and number of branches per plant, respectively. All of the traits studied, except number of branches per plant, showed positive significant correlations with yield. It is concluded that, for yield improvement in cowpea, number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod have selective value equal to seed yield per plant, whereas 100-seed weight and number of clusters per plant have less selective value and number of branches per plant has no selective value.