When the local community doesn’t have anyone “homegrown” to represent them in the Olympics, we have to find those athletes who represent something we are passionate about. For our broader community, that athlete is Justin Best.
A Las Cruces Digest Report
Sources: USDA, NMSU’s Chile Pepper Institute, Drexel University (Photo: Courtesy Team USA)
Men’s Four Final A
(for medals)
Mead/Best/Grady/Corrigan
4:10 AM, Thursday, August 1, 2024
Results Available Online
“From the Schuylkill to the Seine, Justin Best has shown his skill in rowing. The Team USA rower joined a long tradition of Drexel University Dragons competing with the best of the best when he competed in his first Olympic Summer Games in 2021.”
Source: Drexel University
Justin is competing in Paris on the men’s four in rowing, and he (and his fellow oarsmen) are rowing for Gold early Thursday morning.
For Best, this is his second Olympics.
“These four guys have been training for the past three years since the last Olympics,” Director of Rowing at Drexel, Paul Savell said. “It has required a ton of physical conditioning, technical skill, mental toughness and a rigorous training schedule.” (Drexel)
In a recent YouTube video (below), Justin Best credits “peppers” as his fuel of choice as he prepared for the games. Here he is giving a shoutout to John Stommel, USDA geneticist specializing in peppers:
Who is John Stommel to us?
Dr. Stommel has been with the Genetic Improvement of Fruits and Vegetables Laboratory (formerly the Vegetable Laboratory) since 1989, conducting research on tomato, pepper and eggplant. He serves as the Research Leader for the Genetic Improvement of Fruits and Vegetables Laboratory and conducts research to characterize the inheritance of economically important attributes in Solanaceous fruit crops and develop improved breeding lines and cultivars of these crops.
He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Stommel also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Dr. Stommel’s has released award winning ornamental/culinary pepper cultivars and tomato breeding lines with improved fruit quality for use in development of improved hybrids. His breeding and genetics research program is collaborative with ARS scientists in the Food Quality Laboratory, Floral and Nursery Plants Research Unit, and Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, MD; Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA; Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain; and several private companies for which Cooperative Research and Development Agreements have been established. (USDA Biography)
Stommel most recently gave a presentation in Las Cruces at NMSU’s annual New Mexico Chile Conference earlier this year. Stommel’s topic: “Capsicum: A Colorful Crop with Versatile Opportunities”. This was not the first time Stommel had made an appearance at the conference.
Keynote speaker at the 2024 conference, Rich Pratt, director of semi-arid cropping research innovation program at NMSU [presented:] “From Mild to Wild and Back Again: Genetic Diversity, Crop Improvement Strategies, and our Shared Cultural Heritage with Chile.”
“In support of the state’s iconic crop, the New Mexico Chile Conference is held to provide the latest chile pepper research and information,” said Stephanie Walker, extension vegetable specialist at NMSU. “It is an immersive experience that provides useful knowledge for all in attendance, from chile pepper enthusiasts to industry professionals.”
This is why we are rooting for Justin Best. Any friend of John Stommel’s is a friend of ours. Go Team USA!
