ABSTRACT

A green house- experiment was conducted in the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike to find out when best to artificially pollinate cowpea, and also the type of pollen to be used. Four genotypes were used in making pollinations. - Three of these were TVX 3464, TVX 2965, TVX 13767, were obtained from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, while one, a local material (Akidi Enu) was obtained from a farmer in Enugu. There were two times of pollination, namely, i) 6.00arn-8.00arn, and ii) 8:30am — 10:30am. Also, two types of pollen were used, namely i). Fresh pollen and ii) Stored pollen: Crossing was done in all possible combinations of the four parental genotypes. Data were collected on i) number of attempts at crossing, and -ii) number of successes following crossing, success being defined as the number of ovaries that remined till maturity following artificial pollination. Data were analyzed by use of the X2 test. There was no difference between fresh and stored pollen. Early morning (6 :0Oam-8 :0Oam) pollinations, however, gave significantly higher percentage of success than late morning (8:30-10:30arn) crossing (at 1% probability level). It was found out that whereas fresh and stored pollen performed-equally well early morning (6:00am-8:00arn) pollinations led to a higher percentage of fertilization than late morning (8:30am-10:30am) pollinations.