This PhD project intends to; 1) identify competitive and effective rhizobial strains capable of providing sufficient nitrogen derived from BNF for cowpea cultivated in two agro-ecological zones in Kenya, 2) identify optimal cowpea cultivar-rhizobial strain combinations with improved yield and protein content for different growing conditions of small holder farmers in Kenya, 3) develop molecular markers for the evaluation and monitoring of rhizobial inoculation of improved strains, and 4) develop efficient phenotyping assays for large scale screening of cowpea genotypes for improved symbiosis that can be implemented in breeding programs.
Research and coordination
