Plant Breeders Concentrate on Perfecting the Pepper

Hundreds of small leafy plants basking in the filtered light of a greenhouse at New Mexico State University hold the genetic keys to the perfect chile plant.

The only problem: There’s not just one perfect chile plant. Try long hot green chile, long mild green chile, red chile, cayenne, paprika, jalapeno and the dozens of other varieties.

“It’s a cultural thing. People have got to have a certain shape, color, flavor, heat profile--that’s what we want,” said Paul Bosland, an NMSU chile breeder and director of the school’s Chile Pepper Institute.

NMSU has been breeding chile plants for more than 100 years, starting with New Mexico No. 9 in the early 1900s. Before the No. 9 pod type was developed, growers had no control over the genetic makeup of chile and could not predict size or heat of the pods.

Today, researchers with NMSU’s chile-breeding program are spending most of their time developing plants that can withstand elusive diseases, viruses and bacteria that can hamper growth and production.

Last year, farmers harvested only a patchwork of viable chile crops throughout the lower Rio Grande Valley. Cool soil temperatures stunted the plants’ early growth, while strong winds, rain and disease finished them off toward the end of the season.

“That was probably the worst epidemic I had seen,” Bosland said.

In an effort to keep the 1999 growing season from recurring, researchers are looking to wild chile varieties that have grown in South America for hundreds of years.

“Maybe when we domesticated this species, we lost some of the important genes,” Bosland said.

In one of many experiments, Bosland and a team of graduate students are trying to develop a plant that can fend off fungus while retaining its other qualities, such as size, pungency and production value.

Bosland said researchers have discovered two forms of fungus that cause wilt. One type attacks the plant’s root system, while the other works on the plant’s leaves.

“To the grower, it just looks like the same disease,” he said. “But we found out that it wasn’t just a simple gene. There are multiple genes we have to manipulate in the roots and in the foliage to get resistance.”

A wilt-resistant plant has not been perfected, but Bosland said researchers are getting close.

Dickie Ogaz, a farmer near Garfield who has raised chile for about 40 years, said researchers can never stop in the fight to develop stronger and more productive plants.

“There are more and more bugs that like chile,” he said. “The researchers have to put in a lot of time to see what may be the best way to prevent disease.”

On a less critical level, scientists have used classical breeding methods of transferring pollen to develop aesthetically pleasing peppers as well as not-so-hot jalapenos.

Bosland picked out a purple jalapeno from the small sea of jalapeno plants in the greenhouse.

“This purple trait, we have to get rid of that,” he said. “People want certain kinds of chiles. People just don’t buy a jalapeno that’s purple. You want it green, and that’s just the way it is.”

Plants producing the not-so-hot jalapenos live just outside the greenhouse. Those plants were developed by crossing a jalapeno with a bell pepper.

“I tell people, ‘You don’t have to be in pain when you eat chile,’ ” he said. “It’s not supposed to be a religious experience. It’s supposed to be something you enjoy as a food.”

Breeding plants is a science, but Bosland said it’s also a gamble. Unlike with other crops, researchers have not been able to genetically engineer chile.

“We can’t do what they’ve done with tomatoes, corn and cotton and put in these other genes,” said Bosland, who has been breeding chile for more than a decade.

Asked why, he said: “If we knew that answer, it would be worth millions. We have labs all over the world working on this and they just can’t figure it out.”

Until that day, Bosland and his team will continue taste-testing chile and selecting those plants that look just right and that can withstand attacks from bacteria and viruses.

“What we’re looking for is that individual that has the right combination of genes,” he said.

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On the Net: https://www.chilepepperinstitute.org