Climate change has imposed greater challenge on cowpea production in the savannah ecology of West Africa sub-region in the recent time, however, development of varieties that combined resilience (stability) and precocity with high seed yield would be a sustainable approach to mitigate this problem. To this end, nine advanced breeding lines were evaluated along with two commercial varieties across three locations in guinea savannah ecology, using a randomized complete block design of three replications. Results obtained for seed yield and yield components indicate that the eleven cowpeas exhibited substantial variability for all plant traits studied and implications discussed. Additive Main Effect and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) analysis however revealed that the variations recorded were substantially attributable to genotypic component (70–80%) and less of environment (0.7–7.0%), a measure of phenotypic stability of these cowpea lines. However, seed yield and yield components vary significantly across the three locations, which further emphasize the important role of soil and climatic variables to cowpea production. In this study, two varieties (IT07K-299-6 and IT11K-61-82) consistently combined high seed yield (> 2 tons/ha) with precocity across the three locations, and could be multiplied for distribution to farmers as short-term intervention for yield increase. Reduced seed viability of these varieties reflects seed storage challenge in cowpea farming. In addition to significant contributions of some yield components to seed yield, there was evidence of strong association between precocity and high yield, and its implication for cowpea improvement discussed.
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