EFFECT OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PHOSPHATE APPLICATION ON GROWTH OF SOME COWPEA VARIETIES (VIGNA UNGUICULATA L. WALP) IN MINJIBIR, KANO STATE, NIGERIA
Umma Mohammad & Mujittapha Lawan
Abstract
Abstract Phosphorus is important for cowpea production in many tropical African soils with inherent low phosphorus. Most farmers in Africa, however, do not have access to phosphorus fertilizer. Selection of cowpea variety that can produce good yield under low soil phosphorus or those with high phosphorus use efficiency can be a low input approach to solving this problem. In order to examine the possibility of the problem identified above, field experiment was conducted at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Kano station farm located at Minjibir Local Government. The study aimed at assessing the differential phosphorus response of cowpea varieties that are tolerant to low phosphorus: IT97K-819-118, IT98K-205-8, IT97K-499-35 and IT99K-573-1-1. The study found that IT99K-573-1-1 gives the highest yield without phosphorus, followed by the IT97K-499-35, IT98K-205-8 and lastly IT97K-819-118. This concludes that there are varieties that can be carefully selected to mitigate unavailability of phosphorous fertilizer to farmers who wish to produce cowpea. The study, recommends that these potential varieties should be tested at multiple sites under various soil phosphorus condition to confirm the result.