Research Articles (Plant Sciences)

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Browsing Research Articles (Plant Sciences) by Author "Gerrano, Abe Shegro"

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    Breeding of vegetable cowpea for nutrition and climate resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa: progress, opportunities, and challenges
    (MDPI, 2022) Mekonnen, Tesfaye Walle; Gerrano, Abe Shegro; Mbuma, Ntombokulunga Wedy
    Currently, the world population is increasing, and humanity is facing food and nutritional scarcity. Climate change and variability are a major threat to global food and nutritional security, reducing crop productivity in the tropical and subtropical regions of the globe. Cowpea has the potential to make a significant contribution to global food and nutritional security. In addition, it can be part of a sustainable food system, being a genetic resource for future crop improvement, contributing to resilience and improving agricultural sustainability under climate change conditions. In malnutrition prone regions of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, cowpea has become a strategic dryland legume crop for addressing food insecurity and malnutrition. Therefore, this review aims to assess the contribution of cowpea to SSA countries as a climate-resilient crop and the existing production challenges and perspectives. Cowpea leaves and immature pods are rich in diverse nutrients, with high levels of protein, vitamins, macro and micronutrients, minerals, fiber, and carbohydrates compared to its grain. In addition, cowpea is truly a multifunctional crop for maintaining good health and for reducing non-communicable human diseases. However, as a leafy vegetable, cowpea has not been researched and promoted sufficiently because it has not been promoted as a food security crop due to its low yield potential, susceptibility to biotic and abiotic stresses, quality assurance issues, policy regulation, and cultural beliefs (it is considered a livestock feed). The development of superior cowpea as a leafy vegetable can be approached in different ways, such as conventional breeding and gene stacking, speed breeding, mutation breeding, space breeding, demand-led breeding, a pan-omics approach, and local government policies. The successful breeding of cowpea genotypes that are high-yielding with a good nutritional value as well as having resistance to biotics and tolerant to abiotic stress could also be used to address food security and malnutrition-related challenges in sub-Saharan Africa.
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    Expression of nutritional traits in vegetable cowpea grown under various South African agro-ecological conditions
    (MDPI, 2022) Gerrano, Abe Shegro; Mbuma, Ntombokulunga W.; Mumm, Rita H.
    Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.), a traditional legume food crop indigenous to Africa, has potential as both a vegetable and grain crop in contributing to dietary diversity to support health and address malnutrition, especially for those relying heavily on wheat, maize, and rice. The expression of nutritional traits (protein content and concentrations of iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), and manganese (Mn)) in cowpea leaves was evaluated over diverse agro-ecologies of South Africa and typical agronomic practices of smallholder farmers. The genotypes evaluated displayed genetic variation for all four traits. The mean values of Fe, Zn, Mn and protein content varied from 33.11 to 69.03 mg.100.g−1; 4.00 to 4.70 mg.100.g−1; and 14.40 to 19.63 mg.100.g−1 and 27.98 to 31.98%, respectively. The correlation analysis revealed significant degree of positive association between protein and Zn (r = 0.20), while negative associations were observed between Mn and protein (−0.46) and between Mn and Fe (r = −0.27). Furthermore, the expression of these important nutrient traits was influenced by the climatic conditions represented by six environments (location by year combinations) as is typical of ‘quality’ traits. Additionally, genotype-by-environment interaction effects were detected, suggesting that local soil properties and soil health may play a role in nutritional content in plants, perhaps particularly for legume crops that rely on symbiotic relationships with soil bacterial populations to fix nitrogen, which is crucial to protein formation. Further studies are needed to understand how to coordinate and align agronomic and soil management practices in vegetable cowpea production, especially those workable for the smallholder farmer, to realize the full genetic potential and nutritional value of improved vegetable cowpea varieties.