Diversity Of Farmers Varieties (landraces) Of Cowpea (vigna Unguiculata (l.) Walp. Fabaceae) In Wag-himra And North Wollo Zones Of Amhara Region Ethiopia

This study was conducted on cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp., Fabaceae) varietiesrnidentified by farmers of Wag-himra and North Wollo zones in Amhara Region ofrnEthiopia. The main objective of the study was to investigate on the diversity of cowpearnlandraces (farmers’ varieties) and to know the ethnobotanical values of the crop. A totalrnof 168 informants (84 men and 84 women) comprising 72 general informants and 12 keyrninformants per zone aged between 19 and 75 years were interviewed. The field data wererncollected by using purposive sampling and random simpling technique in farmers’ fields,rnthreshing grounds, home gardens, stores and market places. Descriptive statistics,rninformant consensus, preference ranking, ANOVA (analysis of variance), Shannon-rnWiener diversity index, post hoc test and t-test were employed for the analysis of the datarnby using R-software (R studio) v 3.2.2 and MS Excel spreadsheet 2016. Thirty sixrnaccessions were collected and classified under eleven farmer-named varieties. The Tepidrnsub-moist mid-highland (SM3) agroecological zone of Wag-himra had high varietalrndiversity (H’=0.978049) while the Cool sub-moist highland (SM4) zone of Wag-himrarncame up with the least varietal diversity (H’=0.593763). Famers grow cowpea on farmrnsizes ranging from 0.24 ha and 0.30 ha. Area covered by cowpea by agroecological stratarnand zone had statistically significant differences (p

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