Wondering if anyone is considering or working with cowpeas for developing locally adapted landraces, and interested in thoughts or experiences. From what I have read, cross-pollenizing might be challenging due to bloom overlap of different varieties and the pollination method, where larger bees land on the larger lower petal and open the flower to gain access to the pollen. Is anyone working with cowpeas or know more about ways to encourage landrace development. Many thanks and happy growing to everyone in the coming spring!
I started out with cowpeas a few years ago. As far as landrace development goes, assuming it requires crosspollination in isn’t going well. The flowers are pretty closed up and I haven’t noticed much interest from the bees.
From a non-crossed varietal mix point of view, its going fine. Without exception, every variety I have planted grows and produces very well. I’ve stopped worrying about cross pollination so much and have moved on to selecting for my favorite flavors. This year I am going to sort my seeds by type so if any crossed seeds show up, they might be easier to identify.
I don’t mess around much with hand pollinating, most times I’ve tried, it failed.
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I got Lofthouse Cowpeas. I’ve never grown them before. They make a good cover crop and forage for livestock, so if they don’t really work for me as a veg they won’t be wasted.
I’ve got just shy of 100 seed so I may attempt a couple hand pollinations.
I just started with landracing cowpeas this past year. All but one of the many varieties I started with did quite well. Next year I’ll see how many crosses show up.
We’ve only just begun this season. I had not many seeds of not many varieties so this season is just to bulk up seeds. I will have a go at hand pollinating next season. Peas are easy to hand pollinate, common beans are not. I’m hoping cowpeas will be more like peas than common beans in this regard.
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Not yet, but it’s on our shortlist once we have our first Cougar landrace or two under our belts.
I’m planning to grow cowpeas this year. I’m hoping for a diverse mix of different colors, shapes, and flavors. I’m planning to select them for yumminess, prettiness, and productivity. And drought tolerance, almost by default, because I’m a desert, and I want to water stingily!
I still growing some of the compact bushy ones, I like them quite a bit. I interplant them with other things like brassicas. Down here is SE Indiana cowpeas are very productive and after several years had very little issues with any kind of disease or bugs. I think they can easy produce just as well as beans, but I still rely mostly on beans. I mixed them all together as well but this year am going to separate the short bushy ones and the larger vines into separate groups. I haven’t seen any yet that I can say for sure are crossed. The photo is old, I have more kinds mixed in now and have been selecting against the red ones a bit as we don’t like them as much. I favor the larger, lighter colored ones for flavor and production.
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Really have enjoyed hearing about what folks are doing with cowpeas. I have this mixture of purchased seeds and another of a few varieties I saved from last year. These are a mixture of bush and vine types. I did not have any clear crosses last year but added a few more varieties for this year. Looking forward to hearing more from everyone.
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Those pictures are great, and exciting because they show a fair amount of color variation. Yay! Common beans seem to have the most color and pattern variation, so it’s always nice to see that other bean species can offer variety, too.
One consideration for me is, “How good do these taste as green beans?” I really enjoy green beans, so some of the cowpeas I’ve bought have been sold as yard-long beans, a.k.a. cowpeas meant to be harvested as green beans. I hope they’ll be yummy.
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To my taste buds, they have a different flavour profile compared to common beans. Some say mushroomy. Not sure about mushrooms but definitely their own flavour. Also, they are not as sweet. I repeat though that this is the way they taste to me.
I think I’ve heard yard-long beans described as “nutty.” So maybe it’s a stronger umami flavor?
I’m hoping I’ll like the flavor. It sounds promising. The fact that they’re more drought tolerant than most common beans sounds very promising, too.
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thanks to all of you for this discussion on vigna unguiculata. I did not know what cowpeas were, until I recently checked for latin and french (Niéblé) , because your exchanges got me salivating. You know, I am interrested in legumes. So this legume was in my imagination only an african crop, not for france . But I discovered that some of you grow it in non-african conditions so I might as well give it a try.
Also good to mention, I grew last year some african crop (sorgho and millet) in britany a region of france that has a very humid reputation . But last year’s climate here has been litterally mediterranean, so millet did extremely well (and lentills, too) . So I will try to get some cowpea seeds to start getting to know about this species. My first attemps on internet gave no source for these seeds so if any european landracer could help me it would be fantastic.
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You should be able to get haricots oeil noir I think, a very common cowpea. Also, if you are ever in Paris go to the African district (Chateau Rouge especially) and you may find a range of niébés available in grocery stores. You could also search for Fagiolina del Trasimeno, an Italian heirloom cowpea.
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RAY , I love this suggestion : I will go to chateau rouge next time I visit my daughter in Paris ! I know this area of paris from a long time ago, I will find my way there. THANK YOU
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Je vous en prie Isabelle.
so magic to be part of a community .
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I agree they are different. They aren’t my favorite for eating raw, but they are my favorite for cooked dishes. I’d add “earthy” or “minerally” to the “mushroomy” descriptor already added. If you’ve spent enough years in the South, there’s a similarity to fresh black eyed/purple hulled/crowder/etc. peas (which are the same species, so not shocking).
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Interesting! I look forward to trying them and seeing what I think of them!