Cowpea
| Cowpea | |
|---|---|
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| Cowpeas | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Genus: | Vigna |
| Species: | V. unguiculata |
| Binomial name | |
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Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. |
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| Synonyms | |
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The cowpea (or cow pea), Vigna unguiculata, is one of several species of the widely cultivated genus Vigna. Four subspecies are recognised, of which three are cultivated (more exist, including V. textilis, V. pubescens, and V. sinensis):
Cowpeas are one of the most important food legume crops in the semiarid tropics covering Asia, Africa, southern Europe, and Central and South America. A drought-tolerant and warm-weather crop, cowpeas are well-adapted to the drier regions of the tropics, where other food legumes do not perform well. It also has the useful ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen through its root nodules, and it grows well in poor soils with more than 85% sand and with less than 0.2% organic matter and low levels of phosphorus. In addition, it is shade tolerant, so is compatible as an intercrop with maize, millet, sorghum, sugarcane, and cotton. This makes cowpeas an important component of traditional intercropping systems, especially in the complex and elegant subsistence farming systems of the dry savannas in sub-Saharan Africa. In these systems the haulm (dried stalks) of cowpea is a valuable by-product, used as animal feed.
Research in Ghana found that selecting early generations of cowpea crops to increase yield is not an effective strategy. Francis Padi from the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute in Tamale, Ghana, writing in Crop Science, suggests other methods such as bulk breeding are more efficient in developing high-yield varieties.
According to the USDA food database, the leaves of the cowpea plant have the highest percentage of calories from protein among vegetarian foods.
Vigna unguiculata is a member of the Vigna (peas or beans) genus. Unguiculata is Latin for "with a small claw", which reflects the small stalks on the flower petals. All cultivated cowpeas are found within the universally accepted V. unguiculata subspecies unguiculata classification, which is then commonly divided into four cultivar groups: Unguiculata, Biflora, Sesquipedalis, and Textilis. Some well-known common names for cultivated cowpeas include Lesera/ Dangbodi (লেছেৰা/ ডাংবডি) in Assamese, Behlawi in Mizo,black-eye pea, southern pea, yardlong bean, catjang, and crowder pea. Cowpeas have sometimes been called field peas, but that name is best reserved for the Pisum sativum field pea. The classification of the wild relatives within V. unguiculata is more complicated, with over 20 different names having been used and between 3 and 10 subgroups described. The original subgroups of stenophylla, dekindtiana and tenuis appear to be common in all taxonomic treatments, with the earlier described variations pubescens and protractor being raised to sub species level by a 1993 charactisation.
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