Exploring Niches for Short-Season Grain Legumes in Semi-Arid Eastern Kenya - Coping with the Impacts of Climate Variability.

ABSTRACT: Climate variability is the major risk to agricultural production in semi-arid agroecosystems and the key challenge to sustain farm livelihoods for the 500 million people who inhabit these areas worldwide. Short-season grain legumes have great potential to address this challenge and help to design more resilient and productive farming systems. However, grain legumes display a great diversity and differ widely in growth, development, and resource use efficiency. Three contrasting short season grain legumes common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] and lablab [Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet] were selected to assess their agricultural potential with respect to climate variability and change along the Machakos-Makueni transect in semi-arid East

SUBMITTER: Sennhenn A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5422554 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature