Genetic analysis of abiotic and biotic resistance in cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.]

Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] is a most versatile African crop, it feeds people, their livestock and because of its ability in nitrogen-fixation, it improves soil fertility, and consequently helps to increase the yields of cereal crops when grown in rotation and contributes to the sustainability of cropping systems. Because of its ability to tolerate some level of drought stress, cowpea is a crop of choice where > 10 million hectares are cultivated to cowpea in the semiarid Savanna and Sahelian zones of West and Central Africa. However due to the infrequent drought stress throughout cropping seasons over the last 3 decades, the crop suffers important yield reduction. Moreover, cowpea plants under water stress condition are more vulnerable to diseases, parasites and insect pests attacks. In this thesis we carried out genetic analyses of seedling and terminal drought tolerance and cowpea bacterial blight (CoBB) resistance. Two cowpea genotypes with contrasting reactions to drought and CoBB stresses, Danila (resistant) and TVu7778 (susceptible) were used to develop recombinant inbred lines (RILs) mapping population. The RILs and parents were phenotyped for CoBB resistance and for physiological drought tolerance traits and productivity traits under different water regimes in multiple environments at seedling and adult plant stages. A genetic linkage map of 282 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci covering a map distance of 633 cM distributed over 11 linkage groups (LG) from the same RILs was used for quantitative traits loci (QTL) analyses. Moisture stress significantly affected RILs performances with number of pods per plant as the yield component most adversely affected by water stress. Correlation and path analyses revealed that grain yield components (mainly number of pods per plant) and plant biomass had the largest direct effects on grain yield under moisture stress and irrigation. Stem greenness was an excellent predictor of seedling survival to drought (r2 = 0.91). Two QTLs were identified for each of the three traits scored under greenhouse, drought-induced trifoliate senescence (DTS), stem greenness (Stg) and survival (Sur) on LG3 and LG7. For all traits measured under field trials, a total of 42 QTLs were detected, 4 for stomatal conductance (Gs), 6 for delayed leaf senescence (DLS), 5 for flowering time and 16 for grain yield components (pod number/plant, seed number/pod, seed weight), 6 for grain yield and 5 for fodder yield. Three QTLs were detected for CoBB resistance, with two major ones (named CoBB-1 and CoBB-2 confirmed over two experiments) on LG3 and LG5 and one minor QTL (CoBB-3 only for experiment 1) on LG9. Although number of QTLs detected seems to be important, association between QTLs of different traits sharing a common genomic region was observed on LG3, LG5, LG7 and LG8 where QTLs for Gs, DLS, and flowering time co-localized with QTLs for yield parameters, DLS and DTS shared common chromosomal regions with CoBB resistance, on LG3 and LG5. These results suggest that common genes might mediate CoBB resistance and DLS. Two QTLs detected for DLS in the field, co-localized with QTLs under greenhouse for seedling drought tolerance traits DTS, Stg and Sur on LG7. This indicates the presence of potential loci controlling senescence in this genomic region. Moreover, this genomic region represents a syntenic genomic region between cowpea, soybean and Medicago. Our findings provide evidence for QTLs mediating seedling and terminal drought tolerance and CoBB resistance in cowpea. QTL and phenotypic analysis revealed that it should be possible to pyramid CoBB resistance with seedling and terminal drought tolerance. The fact that the genetic map of Danila x TVu7778 is integrated in a consensus map of cowpea of 6 RIL populations will permit comparative genomic studies which will enhance the discovery of functional markers for MAS of seedling and terminal drought tolerance and CoBB resistance in cowpea.