The object of pursuit

This is what the "quest" is all about. These red berries belong to the wild chile pepper, the chitepin. It is thought that these small berries are the progenitor of domesticated chile peppers - anchos, poblanos, serranos, jalapeños, New Mexican green and red, bell peppers. My Ph.D. research seeks to look at both the genetic changes that occur in the shift from wild to domestic AND to understand how farmers' practices shape and foment these changes.

I am beginning to look at this first question but there are little examples of wild chile peppers that are available to use for research purposes. So that leaves me to go and collect my own...

The following weeks are going to chronicle our pursuit of these chile peppers as we go and seek them in the wild and some of the stories and events that happen along the way.

Introductions...

Heather and I will be using this space in lieu of sending out mass emails to all of you. We hope to be updating a couple times a week - so you can can check back as often as you want. This web log, or "blog" format allows us to post more pictures with our text and allows us to present issues and stories in a way that a mass mail cannot. You can keep track of updates by adding our feed to your RSS feed reader/blog reader. If that last sentence did not make any sense to you, just bookmark our page and check back every now and then for updates.