Breeding Stress Resilient and Short Duration Cowpea Varieties for Adaptation to Changing Environmental Conditions and Intensive Cropping Systems.

In the wake of rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, declining water table, increasing drought incidence, declining soil fertility, increased pressure to limit the use of fertilizers and pesticides, and limited availability of arable land, there is a worldwide interest in developing improved crop varieties with stress resilience traits which ensure sustainable and intensive crop production over time and space. Recent progress in cowpea breeding has addressed some of these issues by developing extra-early high yielding and nutrient dense cowpea varieties combined with high levels of tolerance to heat, drought, low soil fertility and resistance to major diseases and pests. These varieties yield between 1.5- 2t/ha grain and fodder within 60-70 days with 27-30% protein in grains and 15-18% protein in fodder and require less rainfall, less pesticides and less fertilizers. They also fit well as a niche crop in various ‘cereal-legume’ cropping systems promoting biological nitrogen fixation and enhanced crop-livestock integration for sustained increase in crop productivity. Cowpea is an important food legume widely grown in the drier regions of the tropics and sub-tropics covering over 65 countries and serves as a major source of dietary protein for millions of people in Asia, Africa, Southern USA and Central and South America. Preliminary trials  of the new varieties indicate good  possibility of a major expansion of cowpea cultivation in the ‘wheat-cowpea-rice’ system of northern India, ‘maize–double cowpea’ strip cropping in Nigeria, ‘maize-cowpea’ rotation in South Africa, ‘wheat-cowpea’ and ‘maize-cowpea’ double cropping in mid-western and southern USA and ‘soybean-cowpea’ double cropping in the Brazilian savannas (Cerrado). With continued progress in conventional and molecular breeding approaches, cowpea is expected to emerge as a major food legume in the 21^st century.