Influence Of Plant Spacing on Insect Pest Infestation and Yield Of Some Cowpea (Vignaunguiculata L. Walp.) Varieties in Kano, Nigeria

A U Yusuf, F S Zakari

Abstract


The experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of plant spacing to pest infestation and yield of three cowpea varieties during the 2015 planting season at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University, Kano. Treatments consisted of three plant spacing of 20, 25 and 30 cm and three improved cowpea varieties (IT97K-499-35, IT90K277-2, and IT93K-452-1). These were laid down in a split plot design with cowpea varieties assigned to main plots and spacing assigned to sub-plots. Treatments were replicated thrice. The result showed that spacing had no significant effect (P>0.05) on population of insect pests. Similarly, the interaction between variety and insect pest population did not show any significant difference except for variety IT90K277-2 which recorded significantly (P<0.05) lower R. dentipes compared to other treatments. Furthermore, spacing had no significant effect on cowpea yield components. However, the interaction between the effect of variety and various yield components showed that variety IT90K277-2 recorded significantly (P<0.05) higher cowpea fresh pod weight, dry pod weight and grain yield compared to other treatments. The present study suggests that resource poor farmers in the study area can adopt the use of the improved cowpea variety IT90K277-2 for increased cowpea grain yield.

Keywords


Cowpea varieties; infestation; insect pest; plant spacing

References


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