Adaptation of pigeon pea genotypes to South African conditions

Pigeon pea is a grain legume adapted to arid and semi-arid regions of the world. It is mainly grown for its edible seeds that are rich in proteins and carbohydrates. The quantitative study was conducted to acquire data on agronomic practices of pigeon pea, for production in South Africa to address food and nutritional security challenges. In the first experiment, two pigeon pea genotypes were planted on two different planting dates with three rates of nitrogen applications during 2020 and 2021 growing seasons. Whereas in the second experiment, two pigeon pea genotypes were planted on two different planting dates with three different plant population densities over the same seasons. The experiments were conducted concurrently over the two seasons at the ARC-Grain Crops Experimental farm at Potchefstroom in the North West province. The treatments were replicated three times in the two experiments.Data was collected on agronomic traits (i.e., plant height, 50% flowering, 75% to physiological maturity, biomass, number of pods, 100 seed mass, grain yield, etc.) that give optimal growth and yield of pigeon pea. It was analysed using the General Linear Model procedure (PROC GLM) of the Statistical Analysis System (2012-2020, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). The mean separation for single treatments was done through Tukey Grouping (P = 0.05) from SAS analysis of variance. A significantly greater volume of biomass, pod mass as well as high grain yield were observed at the early planted pigeon pea with higher nitrogen application rate of 56 kg N ha^-1. The higher plant population density of 45 000 plants ha^-1 produced a significantly (P ≤0.05) greater biomass volume of 20.1 kg ha^-1 for the early planted crops during 2021 season.<br>