New Mexico No. 9

New Mexico No. 9 holds a foundational place in modern chilli history - the first formally bred chilli cultivar released for commercial cultivation, and the variety that effectively launched the modern New Mexico chile industry. The cultivar was developed by Dr. Fabián García at New Mexico State University, who began selective breeding work in 1894 and released the finalised cultivar in 1913 after almost two decades of selection from local landrace stock. García's work was groundbreaking on multiple fronts. Before No. 9, chilli cultivation everywhere relied on landrace varieties shaped by centuries of regional household selection - reliable but inconsistent, with significant pod-to-pod variation in size, heat, ripening time, and other characteristics. García applied formal scientific breeding methods to chilli for the first time, producing a cultivar with deliberately stabilised characteristics suited to commercial production. The methodology he developed became the foundation for all subsequent formal chilli breeding programmes. The specific characteristics of No. 9 reflected the commercial goals: relatively mild heat (500-2,500 SHU) accessible to broad American consumers, uniform large pod size suitable for canning and processing, consistent ripening for predictable commercial harvest, and reliable production across varied southwestern growing conditions. These traits laid the foundation for the modern New Mexico chile industry - the canning industry, the dried chile production, the green-chile-and-red-chile traditions that define New Mexican cuisine, all trace commercial origins back to this single cultivar. Today, No. 9 is grown primarily as a heritage variety rather than for commercial production. Modern New Mexico chile cultivars - many also from NMSU - have superseded No. 9 in commercial fields, with later releases offering better disease resistance, higher yields, and more consistent processing characteristics. But No. 9 remains symbolically important as the foundational variety, and the NMSU Chile Pepper Institute maintains the cultivar in active production for educational and historical purposes. The variety's 1913 release date is now over a century in the past, making New Mexico No. 9 one of the longest-cultivated formally-bred chilli cultivars in the world.