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If you talk to people who have spent some time in the chile industry, they may tell you that nothing will ever compare to a human harvesting a green chile pepper. However, Israeli inventor Elad Etgar is out to change their minds. Etgar’s company has developed a mechanized way to harvest green chile. He describes how the machine harvests the crop. “The head strips the fruit, and the leaves from the plant, and moves everything to the harvester. The harvester separates the leaves, and the fruit, and moves everything from the belt and the boxes,” says Etgar. Etgar has been developing mechanized harvesters for over 25 years. He says that already red chile mostly harvested mechanically, but green…well that’s a different story. “The challenge is on the green chile…to harvest gently and close to the ground and not pull the plan to the ground, “says Etgar. Etgar says that it is important to work with the growers on their irrigation techniques so that the plants won’t be easily pulled out of the ground. “This is the first challenge. The second challenge is to do it fast and the destemming,” says Etgar. The New Mexico chile industry has seen better days according to the New Mexico Chile Association 34,500 Acres were harvested in 1992, and only 9,600 were harvested in 2012. At NMSU’s Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas, researchers navigate and follow one an Etgar’s harvesting machines named Moses 1010 as it plucks green chiles from plants loads them on a conveyer belt where it falls into buckets to be sorted. Dr. Stephanie Walker, extension vegetable specialist at NMSU shares her team’s observations. “The varieties that have a lot of basil branches, those are very low-lying lateral branches where you get the main fruit set starting on a plant. If we have a lot of basil branches on a plant, the picking mechanisms are catching the basil branches and uprooting those plants,” says Walker. Walker adds that the more upright plants with minimal basil branches are working best for this machine. She says that nothing may ever beat a human harvesting green chile. However, she says right now there are some opportunities for mechanized harvesting for green chile. “Another possibility is a second pick green chile. Let hand crews go through and get that first pick, and then when the plants regenerate the second pick, I think this machine would be optimum on green chile plants.” Walker says that the state already has a quality reputation when it comes to green chile, and if growers can adapt to change then the industry could see a comeback. “If we can get over the issue about having a method to get the crop harvested when it needs to be harvested I think we can definitely bring acreage back to New Mexico.” So far the answer is unknown. Etgar is still working to improve his harvesting machine. He says so far very few chile growers are willing to show cooperation as far as testing goes, due to fear of losing labor. Etgar has moved his large harvester to Arizona to conduct more testing, where he says farmers are facing even tougher labor shortages there than in New Mexico.