A field experiment was conducted at Botswana College of Agriculture garden to investigate the effects intercropping maize and cowpeas on the performance of maize and co wpeas. The treat ments were sole maize crop, sole cowpea crop, intercrop 1 (spacing of 40 cm between of maize and cowpea) and intercrop 2 (spacing of 30 cm between maize and cowpea served as treatments. The experiment was monitored fro m November to March. The results show that only maize dry matter was significantly reduced by intercropping. Intercropping reduced the number cowpea flowers per p lant but had no significant effect in the number of seeds per pod and weight of seeds. Cowpea dry matter weight was significantly reduced by intercropping. Planting pattern significantly affected the number of cowpea flowers, nu mber o f pods and dry matter weight. Appropriate spacing/ planting pattern should be considered when intercropping cereal and legume.

To investigate the response of Bambara groundnut landraces to pre-sowing hydration, three experiments were conducted on three bambara groundnut landraces; OM1, Diphiri cream (DC) and Gaborone cream (GC) in the greenhouse at Botswana College of Agriculture, Botswana, in 2011. The experimental designs were completely randomized design (CRD) with 5 pre-sowing hydration; (6, 12, 24, 48, 72 hrs) and the control, each replicated four times. Increasing hydration time from 12 to 72 hrs significantly (p≤0.01) increased the final germination for GC up to 87% and significantly increased OM1 germination up to 57% at 24 hrs. However, there was a significant decrease in final germination for DC. There were significant (p≤0.01) differences within and across the landraces for seedling emergence; GC had the highest emergence of up to 100% at 24 hrs. Across the three landraces GC and DC significantly (p≤0.05) increased stem dry diameter at 6, 12 and 24 hrs pre-sowing hydration. Moreover, pre-sowing hydration treatments had significant (p≤0.01) effect within the three Bambara landraces root dry matters and no significant (p>0.05) effect on GC and DC leaf dry matter. Hydrating seeds for 24 hrs improved germination, seedling emergence, leaf and stem dry matter accumulation of bambara groundnut landraces.

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