Agricultural Varieties of the Cowpea and Immediately Related Species

Excerpts from pp. 635-636 of volume XXVI of the Experiment Station Record: The larger portion of this bulletin is devoted to a catalogue of the names and descriptions of the agricultural varieties of the cowpea and some related species, and to a consideration of the names that have been applied to the varieties, in the literature of the subject, especially in experiment station bulletins. It also presents the results of extended studies along botanical and other lines of the cowpea Vigna sinensis, the catjang V. catjang, and the asparagus bean V. sesquipedalis. They are treated as 3 separate species, although the author states that they intergrade fully and all of them hybridize. In 8 years' work involving 370 lots of foreign seed, and about 630 lots from the United States, 220 varieties of cowpeas, 50 of the catjang, and 35 of the asparagus bean were found to be agronomically distinct. As all of them hybridize "practically every combination of seed, color and shape, with habit and life period can be obtained," i. e., a practically unlimited number of varieties may be obtained. The author believes the breeder of cowpeas purely for forage purposes should emphasize particularly size and vigor, habit, with especial reference to erectness and height, prolificacy, disease resistance, weevil resistance of seeds, retention of leaves late in the season, time of maturity or life period, and evenness of maturity. The ideal forage variety is described in detail, and the Whippoorwill, New Era, and Iron are cited as existing varieties approaching this ideal.