Vigna unguiculata map overview. Vigna unguiculata

Cowpea, Vigna unguiculata, is one of two tropical legumes that are important, and inexpensive, sources of dietary protein in India, Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is consumed as dry seeds, fresh southernpeas, green pods or leaves. Cowpea forage is used to feed livestock in the Sahel and Sudan Savannah regions of Africa. Breeding for resistance to various fungal and viral pathogens depends upon high-resolution genetic maps. An impediment to developing this needed information is the finding that a genetic bottleneck was introduced by domestication which results in significantly less variation within the commercial germplasm. One method to circumvent the reduced variation is to generate mapping populations through crosses which have one parent being a distantly related subspecies. Another method is to use generate mapping populations using distantly related commercial germplasm and genotyping the individuals with more sensitive techniques that are capable of recognizing variation among closely related genotypes.