I just received messages from my good friend that the beans are fruiting already! Not just flowering alone but fruiting! In less than 39 days! That's just a month and 6 days.

I will comment later with the pictures he sent and how this was possible. This, when I'm done with what I am doing here

Once again, welcome on board

What could make cowpea flower quickly?

Previously, as common now with soya bean, cowpea usually respond to the length of daylight (the duration of the day eg shorter night ,longer day or vice versa) termed photoperiodic sensitivity. In respective of when you plant them, they would surely flower and fruit around November.

This is not the case for cowpea again due to breeding by crop scientist. Cowpea is no longer photoperiodic except the old varieties. Cowpea need good understanding to manipulate and it is responsive to bending.

What then could be responsible?
The answers are:

1. Sunlight intensity: This is how bright the sun is. Cowpea is a light loving crop and the intensity received goes a long for it. You would remember I wrote I had to wait till September to plant the seeds to be sure of adequate weather regimes.

Someone we both planted the same variety, told me last week that his, which he planted some days before August 15th has started flowering and fruiting, while I told him I was expecting same for mine this month ending or early next month, unknown to me that mine on the field too are in this stage

One thing a good agric expert will tell you about cowpea is your planting date to avoid stress and workload of having to maintain the farm. Cowpea seed/grain contains about 63% of carbohydrates and 24% of proteins e.t.c. The crop need enough light to make them through photosynthesis and will have to wait for the right amount of sun brightness.

2. Water/ rainfall

Cowpea is a drought crop. It does not need too much water, but adequate water for its establishment. Water and nitrogen excesses results are almost the same in cowpea. The similarities are (i) they will cause it to have excess leaves and crawls (ii) they will delay flowering, fruiting and maturity. Now, water will cause your seed to rot, the plant to decay, the legume to rot. Therefore, a good agric expert backdates the onset of dry season to plant cowpea.

For example, if you're planting a 70-75days maturity cowpea and you're expecting onset of dry season (very scanty rainfall) around November ending, it takes 15-20days for a cowpea flower to mature to a harvestable brown coloured fruit, if you substract this from the above, it gives 55days which means you should except flowering by 45-55days (±10days), if you back date well, it means you should be thinking of planting around mid-early to mid-late September.

Water is very important for fruiting in cowpea, this means, it will enjoy a two week scanty rainfall and the residual moisture(water reserve) in the soil will be enough for the remaining days of fruiting. Cowpea root could extend close to 0.63-1m and there will also be sun to dry your produce!

3. pH

Loosely put, the degree of how acidic or basic your farmland is.
Have you ever wondered why most crops do well around pHes that are near neutral acidic soils? The answer is just metal ions solubility (how quickly those your soil nutrients will dissolve in the water of your soil). At those pHes, they will not dissolve quickly and be transported away from crops so fast (nutrient mobility). Cowpea is not left behind in this.

Have you seen fertilizers that they put humic and flavic acids as their components? This is what exactly they do, they just make what is available but not acquirable to be easily acquirable (forget the chemistry) hence their employment in back side growth booster in poultry keeping

The humus, that black rich soil thing is also important

4. Phosphorus

Although all nutrients are very important for fruiting in their adequate amount but for legumes like cowpea, phosphorus is a big problem. Why?

You see phosphorus is very important for photosynthesis and respiration in crops. No matter the brightness of the sun, if phosphorus is not adequate, expect delay flowering, fruiting and and fruiting that produces small seeds/grains

It is what they make during photosynthesis (the process where plants make food from simple substances of carbon dioxide (most of the air you breathe out) and water) that they will store, if there are now hindrances to this, what do you expect?

The problem of phosphorus

The south soil contains more phosphorus than the north soil but the problem here is that it is easily fixated (quickly combine with other nutrients in the soil, thereby not readily to use). Therefore, in reality, the north soil may contain more easily used phosphorus than the South's.

Another advantage, is the heat or the high temperature. This encourage more that are fixed in their soil to breakdown relatively faster than South's through the effect of weathering.

This is why for your cowpea to do well in the south, you need high but adequate temperature, and cowpea will not fruit well or early, until such temperature is present and that is only possible in the south when the rain is going!

Question:

Oga, I no get money for SUPA (this is for phosphorus) fertilizer (a bag costs close to 15k here) and I really wan do this beans farming ,see na, the bag still dey cost well well

Response: phosphorus can be supplemented organically or let me say semi organically. Look at the animal bones, like what percentage of it are phosphorus?

Let's leave it here today. It is a topic for another day, I wan sleep, abeg.

There is what is called "Farmers Field School" FFS. It believes that, farmers should be trained on the (their) field all rudiments of (modern) agriculture in other to make better decisions and manipulations for and by themselves without no constant rely on the agric experts or the agric extension agents.

This was how Java in Indonesia was able to solve their problems in rice production.

I am an (ardent) believer of it..
To be continued . .... .

5. Weed management

We all know weed compete with crops for all necessities they need to do well. On this I'm not too good due to my busy schedule, right now I'm towards the North Central for field work but I surely do have some kind of perception or lemme say judgement when weeding is necessary and could affect my cowpea.

Cowpea does not have good weed competition ability. When it comes to competing with weeds, na lazy crop.

One of the issues of cowpea production is weeding. This is because selective herbicides for cowpea are still under experiments and not much are already in market, therefore you would have to do manual weeding.

Would you now avail yourself to allow your cowpea grow leaves excessively at the cost of effort of weeding? Hell NO. You'd want them to fruit as early as possible to reduce this!

That us why it is necessary too.

Good morning, do have a nice day!

I was sleepy yesterday and could not remember the last thing there

Great work, really appreciate it.
SW we're getting there gradually.... Please keep us posted.
And is there a special well treated cowpea seed and how can we get?

BMathew:
Great work, really appreciate it.
SW we're getting there gradually.... Please keep us posted.
And is there a special well treated cowpea seed and how can we get?

Yes you can get and there is. Whenever you're ready, I will be happy to help.

Dawson126:
5. Weed management

We all know weed compete with crops for all necessities they need to do well. On this I'm not too good due to my busy schedule, right now I'm towards the North Central for field work but I surely do have some kind of perception or lemme say judgement when weeding is necessary and could affect my cowpea.

Cowpea does not have good weed competition ability. When it comes to competing with weeds, na lazy crop.

One of the issues of cowpea production is weeding. This is because selective herbicides for cowpea are still under experiments and not much are already in market, therefore you would have to do manual weeding.

Would you now avail yourself to allow your cowpea grow leaves excessively at the cost of effort of weeding? Hell NO. You'd want them to fruit as early as possible to reduce this!

That us why it is necessary too.

Great job. Quite insightful

mosdep:


Great job. Quite insightful

Thank you.

Are you a cowpea farmer or you're looking forward to being one?

Dawson126:



Yes you can get and there is. Whenever you're ready, I will be happy to help.

Really appreciate your time. Let me have your contact to get in touch and I will also drop you a message via mail. Thanks

BMathew:

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Really appreciate your time. Let me have your contact to get in touch and I will also drop you a message via mail. Thanks

Call and whatsapp 090*********. Once you get this, let me know so as to remove my contact. Thanks sir

Dawson126:


Call and whatsapp 09066650808. Once you get this, let me know so as to remove my contact. Thanks sir

Noted, thanks for this.

Dawson126:


Thank you.

Are you a cowpea farmer or you're looking forward to being one?

You are welcome Brov. I am a newbie in the cowpea farming business. Incidentally I planted my first set of cowpea seeds in the first week of September almost same time you planted the ones you are showing on this thread. Like I mentioned I have gained much insight from your posts so far and its helping me to take the right decisions. Thanks once again. Here are the pictures of the two varieties i planted:
What are your views observations and suggestions?

mosdep:


You are welcome Brov. I am a newbie in the cowpea farming business. Incidentally I planted my first set of cowpea seeds in the first week of September almost same time you planted the ones you are showing on this thread. Like I mentioned I have gained much insight from your posts so far and its helping me to take the right decisions. Thanks once again. Here are the pictures of the two varieties i planted:
What are your views observations and suggestions?

I am always happy to be of help sir. As for the cowpea, they're just doing fine, you might just need to consider weeding soon and however it goes, please keep me posted sir.

BMathew:



Noted, thanks for this.

Alright, I'll remove it now

Thanks for this thread, I planted mine around September 10. Sprayed with Lambda two weeks ago. I just bought two cups of beans from the market. What variety will you recommend.
Thanks for the teaching. I celebrate you.

Pic

princenomics:
Pic

They're doing OK but they seem trailing, and try to consider weeding them soonest because they might flower soon enough.

There are four basic classifications of cowpea growing habit
1. Erect (they stand alone like vegetable,no crawling at all)

2. Semi erect (they stand and crawl a little, just a little)

3. Prostrate (these ones trail, like melon or watermelon, they won't climb whatever touches them. Yours is likely like that since you bought from the market so we don't know the exact variety to bought and if mixed together could even be varieties)

4. Climbing (I guess you thought as they are trailing, they might eventually need some sort of support for climbing and why you put some sticks near them) these ones trail like melon or watermelon an would climb whatever they touch.

If you plant these four the same time under the same environment, farm practices and weather, they will flower from number one to number four actually

princenomics:
Thanks for this thread, I planted mine around September 10. Sprayed with Lambda two weeks ago. I just bought two cups of beans from the market. What variety will you recommend.
Thanks for the teaching. I celebrate you.

And from the classification I gave up there, the number of times you might consider to apply insecticides increases from number 1-4. The reason is because as they stay longer to attain maturity, the more insects can attack them.

Let me put it into analogy

You are defecating openly in a bush, the longer you stay while pushing the thing to come out, the more different house flies meet you on it.

Naturally, beans attract insect attacks, so the longer they stay, the more they come.

And in fact you have follow the normal regimen of insecticides application for trailing cowpea, insecticides at 4-5 weeks, (repeat every 2 weeks on, in areas of heavy pest infestations), in low incidence of pest, apply again when flowering after the 4-5 weeks, apply when seed are maturing against seed borers and caterpillars. 10 days to harvesting don't apply insecticides at all

Thanks for the advice but I have a question, if I apply insecticide during flowering, won't it affect the bees and other pollinators?

Dawson126:


And from the classification I gave up there, the number of times you might consider to apply insecticides increases from number 1-4. The reason is because as they stay longer to attain maturity, the more insects can attack them.

Let me put it into analogy

You are defecating openly in a bush, the longer you stay while pushing the thing to come out, the more different house flies meet you on it.

Naturally, beans attract insect attacks, so the longer they stay, the more they come.

And in fact you have follow the normal regimen of insecticides application for trailing cowpea, insecticides at 4-5 weeks, (repeat every 2 weeks on, in areas of heavy pest infestations), in low incidence of pest, apply again when flowering after the 4-5 weeks, apply when seed are maturing against seed borers and caterpillars. 10 days to harvesting don't apply insecticides at all

Thank you man. Please keep it coming. We are following and learning. I am a cow pea (beans) farmer too. I have about 3 & half hectares of beans planted around Keffi, Nasarawa state.

princenomics:
Thanks for the advice but I have a question, if I apply insecticide during flowering, won't it affect the bees and other pollinators?

Sorry I'm just replying now. We were just informed yesterday at school we will be having our final assessment on Agricultural Journalism and media studies. To kill it all, external journalism professionals were invited, we had to work under pressure to present radio jingles and television drama. I'm just tired right now.

Back to cowpea, (I understand you have knowledge of pollination and pollinators, let's make it clear for the sake of those who don't)

Cowpea is a self pollinating crop .

Pollination is just like the way animals mate, where the male sperm(cum) fertilize (combine) with the female eggs to give babies (in plants, to give seeds contained inside the fruit). But for some crops to mate like that, they need help. Those helpers are the pollinators. Examples are wind and insects majorly. Let's stop it here.

Beans, cowpea, does not need help of such. Beans no need those helpers. That is, it does not require any agents of pollination to produce fruit. It is a self pollinating crop. To run from help, the male organs are hidden away from insect access.

This is why if you plant white and brown beans on the same farmland, they will not affect themselves. Even if you use the same farm plot except the integrity of that hidden male organs are broken.

So no worries sir.


But if someone does bee or fish farming around your side, please don't choose cypermethrin based insecticides. They're very very very toxic to bees and fish

Jonnic1:
Thank you man. Please keep it coming. We are following and learning. I am a cow pea (beans) farmer too. I have about 3 & half hectares of beans planted around Keffi, Nasarawa state.

This is very great sir. I would have loved to come see your farm! I was supposed to be in Akwanga by December, unfortunately I was denied access to what I wanted to come and do.

I'm glad to have you here sir

Good evening everyone.

I travelled down here (I've got a little break) to my farm and business.

I will be giving updates so far on the cowpea cultivation, and continue the explanations.

I have always be on the point, the major challenges of cowpea cultivation in the south are (1) climate (rain, temperature, sunlight) (2) diseases (3) pests (insects and rodents) (4) weed (5) soil (phosphorus)

We've talked on how the climate could be circumvented. Not much have been said about the diseases but they are least of concern, if you do the right thing.

Tonight, I would like us to look at pest and weed.

Pest

Cowpea has always been known to be attracted to insects, from the black small ones who just clump together (aphid) around it, to the ones that suck the pod, to the ones that destroy the seed, and to several other ones.

Why does insect pests attack crops (which cowpea is part)?

If you have the time, you can refer to my wet season maize dairy where I wrote about the ecosystem.
Nature is in a delicate balance, a balance it is always striving to keep equal.

How can pest be controlled?
We have always known four methods exist
1. Cultural
2. Biological
3. Physical
4. Chemical control

One of those things that take lot of money from cowpea farmers is the cost of chemicals. They forget about the alternatives, and that is why today we have beans that have been battled with various chemicals to the extent of people dying from their consumption

As arranged from 1-4 above are the steps of control on should choose in beans cultivation

1. The cultural control
Just as how we would say culture is the way of life. Cultural here, the way of doing things. They're just adjustments you make on your farms that is better for your own kind of environment, in order to be successful in your farming business.

We've spoken on various ones here. For examples, divide your farm into parts or segments, if you want to cultivate 5 hectares and above, you can make it 1 hectare located in different parts of the whole farmland, check the crops surrounding your farm to be OK for beans, backdate your planting date for beans etc

2. Biological control
Just like biology. Anything that deals with what? Living things, yeah. You got it.

For examples,
A. Plant early to medium maturing varieties of beans. Their time is short on the farm! No be wetin dey stay too long insects go meet before hin go call hin people come or born plenty children cos food dey available. By the time, dem know wetin sup, he go choke them.

B. Plant varieties that are resistant to insect attack like pod borers etc.
Some places are just endowed with some kind of pest. If you get a new farm, and you won plant beans, ask person wey don tay for that farmland if them don plant beans around before, if hin talk yes, ask wetin be the challenges they face and how many years ago

My brother, anything less than 8 years, try to stand gidigba for that challenge, if na leaf eaters or miners, aphid, talk to people wey sabi all these varieties that are resistant and go for it.