Strides made toward mechanical harvesting of New Mexico chile crop

Strides made toward mechanical harvesting of New Mexico chile crop Las Cruces Sun-News By Diana Alba Soular The mechanical harvesting of one of New Mexico's favorite crops is inching closer to reality, experts said Tuesday at a yearly chile conference…Stephanie Walker, conference co-chair and chile researcher for New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service, has been working to develop a type of green chile that's more easily harvested by machines. Last summer was the second that the particular chile breeding lines reached certain benchmarks when harvested using a machine, she said."It left less in the field," she said. "The breakage was about equivalent to the commercial varieties (of chile)." If the green chile passes its third trial this year, the next step would be to release it as a chile strain to be grown by farmers who want to mechanically harvest the crop, Walker saidIf the green chile passes its third trial this year, the next step would be to release it as a chile strain to be grown by farmers who want to mechanically harvest the crop, Walker said. It's been a slow but steady process reaching this point, Walker said. Developing chile varieties, creating a successful mechanical harvesting machine and developing a chile de-stemming machine have all been components taken on by different people at the university or in the industry. Farmers, agricultural scientists and agricultural company product representatives mingle and talk during a break at the 2018 New Mexico Chile Conference at Hotel Encanto, Tuesday Feb. 6, 2018.Buy Photo Farmers, agricultural scientists and agricultural company product representatives mingle and talk during a break at the 2018 New Mexico Chile Conference at Hotel Encanto, Tuesday Feb. 6, 2018. (Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News) "We started developing these breed lines 10 years ago," she said. "We had to put a lot of pieces together." The mechanical de-stemming of green chile is considered to be one of the biggest remaining hurdles to large-scale mechanical harvesting. That's because laborers now carry out the task in the field by hand when pulling chile off the plants. But it's proven to be a much more difficult task to accomplish by machine. De-stemmer progress Nag Kodali of New Hampshire, inventor of a chile de-stemming machine, was among the conference attendees. His machine was part of a 2015 trial near Hatch that paired the de-stemming machine with a mechanical harvester. Since then, Kodali said, he's made a number of advancements to the device, which uses a conveyor belt to align and chop off chile stems. He said he's working with a southeastern Arizona farmer who's breeding chile peppers that are more easily de-stemmed than current varieties. In particular, the breeding line are straighter, have stems that readily break off the pepper and are heavier than normal varieties. More: Want the most flavorful green chile? Go with NuMex, NMSU researchers say Kodali said the first of his machines to be installed in a commercial chile processing plant is set happen in California. A production facility near Deming is considering installing the device, too. "It took four or five years to reach this stage with the de-stemmer, but finally we are here," he said. "If we are talking next year at this same time, I think I'm going to tell you: 'Mission accomplished.'" “We're trying to bring technology to the field in terms of evaluating plants for breeding.” Dina St. Clair, professor at UC Davis Dina St. Clair, professor at UC Davis, said she's been working with NMSU on developing a device, equipped with cameras, that would assess chile pepper plants in the field, particularly to find which ones are the most desirable to breed. This process is currently labor-intensive, which hinders the pace of chile breeding. "We're trying to bring technology to the field in terms of evaluating plants for breeding," she said. The project enters its second year in 2018. Paul Bosland, conference co-chair and regents professor of horticulture at NMSU, said now it takes about 10 years to develop a new variety of chile. But with the ongoing research, "we hope to speed it up," he said. Bosland and St. Clair said faster development of new chile varieties will help in the development of plants that will tolerate the effects of climate change. Matt Romero, of Romero Farms, gives a presentation on pest and disease management in organic chile at the 2018 New Mexico Chile Conference, Tuesday February 6, 2018.Buy Photo Matt Romero, of Romero Farms, gives a presentation on pest and disease management in organic chile at the 2018 New Mexico Chile Conference, Tuesday February 6, 2018. (Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News) Endowed chair update An effort to create an endowed chair position at NMSU dedicated to future chile research has continued to progress, said Cindy Nicholson, director of development for the university's College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. More: New Mexico issues 2,000 'Chile Capital of the World' license plates The campaign is attempting to raise $1 million, which would be put into a permanent fund to support the salary of a researcher. The nearly decade-long effort has generated $910,000. Nicholson said the goal is to create a job that will exist in perpetuity and won't be subject to position curtailments by the university. "That chair is important to everybody from our processors to our growers to our consumers," she said. There's a push underway to raise the final $90,000. For information, visit the Chile Pepper Institute website: https://cpi.nmsu.edu. Diana Alba Soular may be reached at 575-541-5443, dalba@lcsun-news.com or @AlbaSoular on Twitter.