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NMSU student goes from growing chile in space to maintaining acequias
Jacob Torres stands on the edge of a tree-covered acequia in Española, New Mexico, as water from Santa Cruz Dam fills the earthen canal below. Under an August morning sun, he spends several minutes raking stubborn debris from the centuries-old irrigation system before releasing a precious resource that will soon flow through his hometown. Torres, a 2014 NMSU graduate and current Ph.D. student in New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, is no stranger to solving problems. Before returning to New Mexico, he was a NASA scientist who helped develop the experiment that grew the first fruit – New Mexico chile – in microgravity in 2021. But no matter the issue – whether it’s managing a historic acequia network or growing crops in a controlled environment with or without gravity – Torres relies on his education from NMSU. “When you get hired to do something, usually it’s in a system that’s already existing, and you don’t get training on how to use it. You just get thrown in there and have to figure it out,” he said. “The playbook I learned at NMSU is to: One, get the system running; two, make an assessment of that