HETEROSIS STUDIES OF SUGAR CONTENT INHERITANCE IN SEGREGATING POPULATION OF COWPEA (VIGNA UNGUICULATA L. WALP)

ABSTRACT The research was conducted from 2013 to 2016 at the Ahmadu Bello University AGRA Screen house and IAR Research field, Samaru Zaria located on latitude 11°11', longitude 07°38' and 686 m above the sea level. This region belongs to the Northern Guinea savannah ecological zone of Nigeria, with a view of identifying promising segregants and to evaluate the potential for genetic improvement of nutritional quality of cowpea for sweetness which is an important component of taste in cowpea for cowpea consumers especially the diabetic patient which is in the increase globally, Cowpea seeds sugar content was measured using Anthrone method which is the best colorimetric Quantitative analysis of monosaccharide, disaccharide and glycoside present in a given sample. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a significant variation exist with regards to this trait in all the selected genotypes based on selection intensity of 10% (n for P1, P2, F1 = 20. The highly significant difference in mean squares implied that there is discernable evidence of inherent genetic variability among the cowpea genotypes with respect to this trait. The means generation were separated, all the vertical means with the same letter do not differ significantly at (P = 0.05) using LSD. The mid parent Heterosis is 61% and the best parent Heterosis is 37% of sugar contents which is high.