New Trends in Cowpea Improvement: Integrating Genomics, Stress Resilience, and Sustainable Production

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) is a versatile warm-season legume widely cultivated across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, valued for its good adaptation to drought, heat and low-input practices, rapid growth, and high protein content. As a staple food, fodder source, and soil enriching crop, it contributes significantly to livelihoods and agroecosystem sustainability in resource-limited environments. Over the past decade, cowpea research has benefited from substantial progress in genomic resource development, including reference genome assemblies, dense marker panels, transcriptomic datasets, and marker-trait associations. These innovations are enabling deeper exploration of domestication history, trait genetics, and adaptive responses. Parallel advances in breeding tools such as gene editing, genomic selection, and improved transformation systems, are expanding the toolkit for developing climate resilient and nutritionally enhanced cultivars. Together, these advances create a timely opportunity to accelerate improvements in cowpea productivity and resilience.Cowpea is central to food and nutritional security for millions of people, yet its productivity is increasingly threatened by climate change, land degradation, and the intensification of biotic and abiotic stresses. At the same time, the global demand for climate-resilient, nutrient dense crops is accelerating, creating an urgent need for innovative approaches to cowpea improvement. Recent advances in high-resolution genomics, multi omics platforms, functional genetics, and breeding technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to unlock the crop’s genetic potential and accelerate the development of resilient, high yielding varieties.This Research Topic aims to assemble cutting edge contributions that address the key challenges limiting cowpea production and explore innovative strategies to overcome them. By integrating genomics, stress resilience research, modern breeding tools, and sustainable production practices, the goal is to advance our scientific insights and technological innovations to strengthen cowpea’s role in climate smart agriculture and food security. We seek to stimulate a multidisciplinary dialogue that moves the field toward practical, scalable solutions for farmers and food systems globally.This Research Topic welcomes contributions that highlight new trends, innovations, and emerging directions in cowpea research. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: high-resolution genomics; multi omics and systems biology; molecular dissection of agronomic, adaptive, and domestication traits; biotic and abiotic stress resilience; genome editing and transformation technologies; advances in breeding strategies; nutritional enhancement; vegetable cowpea; and sustainable, climate smart production systems. We particularly encourage studies that integrate cross disciplinary approaches or provide new methodologies accelerating cowpea improvement.We invite authors to submit original research articles, reviews, mini reviews, methods papers, and perspective or opinion pieces that contribute to advancing the next generation of cowpea improvement. Multidisciplinary work and studies with translational relevance for breeding and production are highly encouraged. Topic editors: Jose Maria Barrero, TJ Higgins, María Muñoz-Amatriaín Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77821/new-trends-in-cowpea-improvement-integrating-genomics-stress-resilience-and-sustainable-production