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Overheard at the New Mexico Chile Conference 2000
by Dave DeWitt
The Future of Chiles in New Mexico
At least two attendees who do business in Mexico told me that they were having problems finding adequate numbers of workers to pick chiles. This is a startling development for a country that supposedly has a surplus of unemployed workers. Apparently, emigration to the U.S. and the attraction of working at maquila plants along the border are responsible for the shortage. For years now, workers from the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas have been recruited to pick chiles in the central and northern parts of the country, but those workers are diminishing in number, and many return home when the weather starts to cool down in November. The solution? Both of the attendees were looking at the mechanical harvesters on display at the conference.
The Chile Pepper Institute, sponsor of the New Mexico Chile Conference, is sponsoring a fund-raising promotion that allows donors to have an ornamental chile named after them. The donation can be a cash gift, securities, an installment gift, real estate, or a charitable gift annuity. The name must be approved by the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Home Economics, but that’s the only catch. So if your name is Peter Piper and you have some extra cash, you can append your name to a flashy, colorful ornamental. For more information, contact the Chile Pepper Institute by email at hotchile@nmsu.edu or by phone at (505) 646-3028. Incidentally, the CPI now has a new website address, www.chilepepperinstitute.org, that is much easier to remember.
The Future of Chiles in New Mexico
The leader of the NMSU Chile Pepper Task, Rich Phillips, is predicting the end of chile growing in New Mexico over the next six or seven years unless drastic steps are taken to make it more profitable for farmers. Citing insect pests, disease, labor problems, competition from Mexico, and poor agricultural practices, Phillips suggested that farmers will simply stop planting chile and switch to more profitable crops. Another speaker at the conference, Tim Hartz of the University of California--Davis, said that California growers went through a similar situation years ago and managed to survive by adjusting their agricultural practices. New Mexico farmers could learn from them, he suggested, by planting double rows of seedlings and investing in drip irrigation.
Dr. Yayeh Zewdie, senior research specialist at the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, described the highlights of the past year’s breeding program. There has been progress in improving ‘NuMex Big Jim," including thicker pod walls, larger fruit, and a slightly higher pungency. There has also been improvement in color and disease resistance in red chiles and paprika. Dr. Zewdie said that the difficulty in achieving chile plants resistant to phytophthora root rot is due to the fact that there are different "races" of the fungus, and that the New Mexico soil harbors "the most aggressive race of phytophthora." So, plants that are, say, resistant to the New Jersey race of the fungus, still fall prey to the New Mexico race.
