The sustainable agriculture in drylands depends on stored soil water, efficient use of water, prevention of soil degradation, and the use of crops that have drought tolerance. Dryland regions in the world are vulnerable ecosystems, for that reason, productive crops associated with erratic and low rainfall, and different land-use practices are fundamentals for dryland cropping systems. Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is an excellent crop for research in dryland regions due to high genetic variability, excellent nutritional value, wide adaptive capacity, high productive potential, and strategic values. We tested the productive performance of two cowpea genotypes in rainfed planting, during low rainfall (< 200mm), and on two different land-use conditions. Our results show that there are variations among the characters between Roxinho and Corujinha genotypes evaluated. Roxinho had more yield than Corujinha in rainfed farming with low rainfall. Besides that, Roxinho genotype shows a stable yield regardless of the environmental conditions evaluated. Yield and total dry mass show major contributions to genetic divergence and major heritability values. Therefore, phenotypic selection can be applied based on yield and using the number of vargem per plant as an indirect variable due to correlation among them. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3575407