COWPEAS ( Vigna anguiculata L.Walp)
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is one of the most important legume crops in the semiarid tropics covering Asia, Africa, southern Europe, and Central and South America. It contains 23-35% of proteins (Amanda et al. 2011) and high rate of lipids (1 to 1.6%), ash (3.4 to 4.6%); and dietary fibbers (19.5 100 g of seed flour meets the Recommended Diatary Allowance (RDA) in Fe, Zn, K, Ca, Mg, Mn and Cu (Fontenele et al., 2012. It is adrought-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 athmospheric 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.
Cowpeas are grown mostly for their edible beans, although the leaves, green peas and green pea pods can also be consumed, meaning the cowpea can be used as a food source before the dried peas are harvested. Its haulms are used as fodder for livestock particularly during the dry season
VARIETIES
There are many varieties of cowpeas grown all over the world including black eye or field peas, Heiloom cowpea varieties and hybrids. However, in Rwanda we have a small amount of mixed varieties commonly known as "landraces."
Cowpea landraces varieties available in Rwanda
RWA
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