ASSOCIATION ANALYSIS OVER SEASONS IN BROAD GENETIC BACKGROUND OF COWPEA {VIGNA UNGUICULATA (L.) WALP}.

Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] is a valuable warm season pulse crop grown for its grain, vegetable and also fodder. Very few efforts have made to understand the association of various yield components and their direct and or indirect influence on yield of cowpea. In the present study twenty genotypes of cowpea selected from various genetic background were used to study the association pattern among morphological traits and direct and indirect effect of these traits on productivity is also discussed. number of clusters plant, pods per plant had positive correlation with seed yield where as, clusters per plant, pod length and test weight had a positive direct effect on seed yield and days to maturity has negative direct effect on seed yield. Few genotypes were identified to be superior over the local check (C-152). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]