AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE www.arccjournals.com/www.legumeresearch.in LR-3646 [1-5] *Corresponding author’s e-mail: vinusp7@gmail.com Legume Research, Print ISSN:0250-5371 / Online ISSN:0976-0571 Evaluation of cowhage ( mucuna pruriens L.) genotypes for growth and flowering characters in arecanut plantation under hill zone of Karnataka Vinay, S. Patil*, Sadashiv Nadukeri., G. Raviraja Shetty, K. Hima Bindu and M. Ganapathi Department of Plantation, Spices, Medicinal and Aromatic Crops, College of Horticulture, Mudigere-577 132 Karnataka, India Received: 02-11-2015 Accepted: 21-04-2017 DOI:10.18805/LR-3646 ABSTRACT An experiment was conducted to examine the performance of eight cowhage (Mucuna pruriens L.) genotypes for their growth and flowering parameters in arecanut plantation under hill zone of Karnataka. Significant differences were observed in genotypes with respect to growth and flowering attributes. The genotype Arka Dhanvantari recorded the maximum plant height (282.03 cm) and number of trifoliate leaves (71.03) at harvest. The maximum leaf area (20064.39 cm 2 ), leaf area index (7.43) and leaf area ratio (246.25 cm 2 /g) was recorded in genotype Arka Dhanvantari. The maximum absolute growth rate (1.38 g/plant/day) and crop growth rate (5.12 g/plant/day) was recorded in genotype IIHR Selection-2. The days taken for first flowering and 50 per cent flowering were minimum (65.73 and 72.33, respectively) and maximum (132.20 and 140.67, respectively) in the genotypes Arka Aswini and Arka Dhanvantari, respectively. The maximum number of inflorescence per plant (8.30) was recorded in genotype IIHR Selection-2. Genotype Arka Dhanvantari recorded maximum number of flowers per inflorescence (15.50) and inflorescence length (18.10 cm). Key words: Cowhage, Evaluation, Flowering, Genotypes, Growth. INTRODUCTION Cowhage (Mucuna pruriens L.) is a leguminous, twining annual climber having wide distribution in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. It belongs to the family ‘Fabaceae’, sub family Papilionaceae. It is commonly known as velvet bean/cowitch/cowhedge in English, kapikacho/ kevach in Hindi, atmagupta/kapikacchu in Sanskrit, nasugunni/turuchegida in Kannada. It is cultivated in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, South East Asia and Malaysia. In India, 14 species are found in the foot hills of the Himalayas, the plains of West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar islands (Farooqi and Sreeramu, 2001). All parts of cowhage possess valuable medicinal properties. It is used against a wide range of disorders, such as urinary tract, neurological and menstruation disorders, constipation, edema, fever, tuberculosis, ulcers, Parkinson’s disease (Katzenschlager et al., 2004) and helminthiases like elephantiasis. Traditionally, the powdered seeds of cowhage was found to increase the general mating behavior in rats (Amin et al., 1996). Besides its medicinal uses, M. pruriens L. is used as an important fallow and green manure crop. Since the plant is a legume, it fixes nitrogen and fertilizes soil by soil amelioration, conservation and fertility improvement (Kavitha and Thangamani, 2014). No systematic information is available regarding the evaluation for commercial cultivation of definite cowhage genotype/ accession. Hence an attempt is made to evaluate several genotypes of cowhage for growth and flowering characters. MATERIALS AND METHODS A field experiment was conducted on “Evaluation of cowhage (Mucuna pruriens L.) genotypes in arecanut plantation under hill zone of Karnataka’’ at experimental block of Department of Plantation, Spices, Medicinal and Aromatic Crops, College of Horticulture, Mudigere, during the year 2014-2015 with a view to evaluate different cowhage genotypes for growth and flowering characters. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replication and eight treatments. Thirty plants were maintained in each treatment with spacing of 60 cm x 45 cm between row and plant, respectively. Seeds were sown in the month of Nov-2014 and plots were irrigated immediately and other cultural practices were followed. Observations were recorded on five randomly tagged plants from each genotypes of each replication avoiding border plants. Observations were recorded and statistically analyzed for various growth and flowering parameters. Details of the genotypes used in study are as follows. Genotype Colour of the seed Source Arka Aswini Black IIHR, Bengaluru Arka Dhanvantari Black IIHR, Bengaluru IIHR Selection -2 White IIHR, Bengaluru IIHR Selection -3 White IIHR, Bengaluru