Genetic Diversity of Cowpea: Implications for Crop Improvement and Food Security: A Review

作者：T. Vaishna, V. Radhakrishnan, L. Resmi · 发表于：Agricultural Reviews · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.18805/ag.r-2866 · 被引用次数：4

Cowpea is a major legume crop native to Africa and it provides food for man as well as livestock. Even though it is widely cultivated in Africa, a second domestication was probably occurred in Asia. Cowpea can thrive in a range of soil types, pH and temperatures. Besides, changing lifestyle and climate variability have brought in enough scope for its cultivation. Variability studies in cowpea are highly significant in order to identify superior genotypes for the further improvement of the crop. The genetic diversity analysis will help in the identification of potentially distinct genotypes with contrasting traits which can be used to operate effective selection of genetically diverse genotypes for yield improvement as well as nutritional enrichment and climate resilience. Hence, the present review is focused on the studies carried out in different parts of the world to characterize the genetic diversity in cowpea germplasm. This work was done at the Department of Botany, University of Calicut, Kerala. The study reviewed and systematically evaluated the various practices implied to assess the genetic diversity in cowpea. Literature search was done during March, 2023- July, 2024. About 150 Research papers were screened from various data bases like Google scholar, ResearchGate and a total of 79 research papers were used to write this review article. Present review article reveals the significance of cowpea as a food and fodder crop and the characterization of cowpea genotypes as...