Interrelationship between yield and components of gamma ray irradiated cowpea under humid tropical rainforest conditions of umudike, Nigeria

Field experiment was conducted at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture; Umudike Farm in 2002 and 2003 season with the aim of determining the association between characters of gamma ray irradiated cowpea varieties. Forage yield was found to be positively correlated with number of leaves per plant, number of pods per plant, leaf length, and fresh pod yield. Number of days to flowering, number of days to pod filling and number of days to physiological maturing and fresh pod yield were negatively correlated thus making simultaneous improvement of both traits difficult. Number of branches per plant, number of leaves per plant, plant height, number of pods per plant and number of seed per pod had a positive correlation with fresh pod yield and could be a possible basis for effective selection in cowpea production.