Physiological Quality of Seeds of Promising African Yam Bean ( Sphenostylis stenocarpa (Hochst. Ex A. Rich) Harms) and Pigeon Pea ( Cajanus cajan L. Mill sp.) Landraces

摘要

Pigeon pea and African yam bean are underutilized but important crops for household food security that are grown for consumption and rarely for commercial purposes. One of the major problems that have limited the cultivation of these crops is poor field establishment. Scaling up production and consequently the benefit of these crops requires rapid and uniform emergence and establishment. The study was undertaken to assess physiological quality of 6 selected promising landraces each from several collections of African yam bean and pigeon pea germplasm in Nigeria. Traits used to assess quality were 100 seed weight, standard germination test, bulk conductivity, seedling vigour and amount of mineral ion leaked by fully imbibed seeds after a 24 h soak in distilled water. Irrespective of species, selections showed no apparent seed viability problem, overall mean germination percentage being 81.78% for pigeon pea and 79.56% for African yam bean. The corresponding germination rate indices were 3.28 and 4.63 days, respectively. However, the mean bulk conductivity values were 84.76 for pigeon pea and 48.23 μS/cm/g for African yam bean and these values indicate that seeds of all the lines had low vigour and by inference were unsuitable for sowing. Thus, the poor field establishment problems associated with the crops are vigour and not viability problem. Results were discussed in the context of what areas of further research need to be explored in order to address constraints that have made these crops underutilized.