Evaluation of cowpea productivity with and without inoculation

Abstract

With the advent of large scale agricultural production, environmental degradation has increased
substantially, either by improper handling of the soil and/or impact of agrochemicals.
Thereby, the need arises for alternative production ways that allow increases in productivity
with reduction of damages to the agroecossystem. Thus, the objective of the present study was
to evaluate the effect of inoculation of bacteria on the productivity of cowpea. For this, plant
height, aerial part mass, root dry mass and productivity were determined. The experiment was
performed in randomized blocks design with two treatments (without and with inoculation), four
replications, totalizing eight plots. The inoculated plants presented higher dry mass of shoot
aerial part and root. Regarding productivity, even though not differing statistically, there was
an increase of 38.29% with inoculation. The inoculation of cowpea bean seeds with BR 3262
proved to be efficient in raising crop productivity.