Southern Africa smallholder farmers continue to be the most affected by the challenges of climate change and variability. The variability of climate demands the use of a variety of agronomic strategies and crop choices. Traditional drought tolerant cereal crops such as sorghum and millets are often chosen when drought seasons are anticipated. However, there are certain crops, originating elsewhere, that could help the smallholder farmers increase diversity of crops that can be grown in changed climates. Trials were conducted to test a basket of known and introduced climate smart crops in the field. The cereal crops tested were maize, sorghum, pearl and finger millet, and legumes: tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolias), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), Bambara nut (Vigna subterranea), groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) and pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan. A second experiment was conducted to determine the effects of inorganic fertilizer and rhizobium inoculation on the growth and grain yield of field grown tepary bean. Both experiments were laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Due to drought conditions during the growing season, cereal crops could not produce grain yield, as there was no grain filling. Despite this, cereal biomass was 5t ha -1 for maize, followed by sorghum (1.3t ha -1 ) and millet (1.2t ha -1 ). Legume crops produced grain with cowpea yielding 568.1kg ha -1 of grain, followed by tepary bean (245.9kg ha -1 ) and common bean (227kg ha -1 ). This is important for food, nutrition and health security of smallholder communities. Tepary bean inoculated with rhizobium and had fertilizer applied produced higher grain yield than those without fertilizer or rhizobium inoculant (P£0.05). In conclusion, resource poor farmers, affected by drought effects of climate change, can adopt both cereals and legumes climate smart crops, in order to create food and nutritional security. This is crucial for food and nutritional security of vulnerable households affected by climate change and variability.

The variability of climate demands the use of a variety of agronomic strategies and crop choices. Traditional drought tolerant crops such as sorghum are often chosen when drought seasons are anticipated. However, there are crops, tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolias), such as that could help increase diversity of crops that can be grown in changed climates. Trials were conducted to determine the growth of tepary bean on station and in the field. In the field it was compared to other commonly used legumes such as cowpea, Bambara nut, groundnut and pigeon pea. Tepary bean matured in 54 days after planting, the earliest among all the legumes. A second experiment was done to determine the effects of inorganic fertilizer and rhizobium inoculation on the growth and grain yield of field grown tepary bean. This was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the University of Zimbabwe Crop Science fields. The treatments were: basal fertilizer with top dressing, basal fertilizer only, top dressing fertilizer only, rhizobium with top dressing fertilizer, rhizobium only and neither control with no rhizobium or any inorganic fertilizer (control). There were significant differences in biomass yield between the treatment with basal fertilizer+top dressing and the control (P<0.05). Podding showed significant differences between treatments (P<0.05). Results showed that a combination of ammonium nitrate with either compound D or rhizobium produced similar yield. Rhizobium with top dressing fertilizer had a mean yield of 0.57 t/ha whilst basal fertilizer with top dressing had 0.60 t/ha. We conclude that resource poor farmers, affected by drought effects of climate change, can use rhizobium for optimum production of tepary bean, in variable climate and drought seasons and still get a yield. This is crucial for food and nutritional security of vulnerable households affected by climate change and variability.

Pigeon pea is an important source of protein for smallholder farmers in South Africa. The average seed yield per hectare ranges from 0.5 to 1 tonne due to the use of un-improved varieties that succumb to both biotic and abiotic stresses. Understanding the relationship between seed yield and agronomic traits in a genetically diverse germplasm collection is a prerequisite for developing an efficient selection and breeding program. This study determined the relationship between seed yield and agronomic traits to identify key traits for selection. Two separate experiments involving seven short and six medium duration pigeon pea genotypes were planted in a randomized complete block design (RCBD), each with three replications. Agronomic traits, including yield and its components&rsquo; genotype mean data was subjected to correlation, path coefficient and stepwise regression analyses. The results showed a strong positive and significant correlation between number of pods per plant and seed yield in both medium and short duration genotypes. The number of pods per plant had a high direct effect on seed yield in both medium and short duration with values of (0.43) and (0.63) respectively. Number of branches and pod length exhibited high direct effect (0.30-0.99) for medium duration. However, seed yield per plant was an important predictor of seed yield in short duration while seed yield per plant, 100 seed weight and number of seeds per pod were key predictors of seed yield in medium duration genotypes. Therefore, these traits should be targeted for seed yield improvement in Pigeon pea.