Stakeholders hail prolific nature of PBR Cowpea

Production trial field of 2 PBR Cowpea candidate varieties for NPTs under seed multiplication in the CFT at Farako-Ba. (PHOTO: Courtesy)

(Farako-Ba: August 10, 2023) A cross-section of stakeholders comprising seed companies and farmer organisations in Burkina Faso have commended the prolific nature of the Pod Borer Resistant cowpea saying they can’t wait to have it on their fields.

The group which included Dr. Traoré Doulaye from Tho and Gnire (former chief of Cotton programme at INERA), Tani G. François and Traoré Abdoudramane from Fenabiotech, Boua Daniel and Kaboré Mouniratou of Nafaso Seed Enterprise visited the green house where the two leading PBR Cowpea varieties (IT97KT and NafiT) were being produced under a production trial supervised by Herve Bama, Trial Manager for the PBR Cowpea Project at INERA.

During this visit the stakeholders appreciated the productive potential of the two varieties, especially NafiT, (the farmers preferred lines introgreessed with cry1AB gene) with its long pods, the size of the seeds and their very white color.

Dr Batieno Joseph, Principal Investigator of the PBR Cowpea Projectat INERA said: “I personally invited them because of the good performance in terms of pod load and length of the two lines. It’s also for them to see the real performance of the varieties before seeing what their own field currently under NPTs would yield. This is a Seeing-is-Believing tour for them to see and appreciate how the PBR Cowpea differs from their conventional varieties.

The PBR Cowpea is currently under National Performance Trial in the country as a requirement for its commercialization.

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