Click Photo to Enlarge

Eagle Ranch Pistachio Groves and Heart of the Desert Vineyards is owned and operated by George and Marianne Schweers. Eagle Ranch is home to New Mexico’s first and largest producing pistachio groves. This family farm started in 1974 when George and Marianne Schweers acquired 400, two-year-old pistachio trees, little did they know what was in store!

An Air Force officer, George was stationed at Holloman AFB in 1969. Growing up in rural Nebraska, a family goal was to return to agriculture after military service. So, in the early 1970’s, after the family determined that they wanted to stay in the Tularosa Basin, the search for a crop that would grow in desert conditions began. As the Schweers were researching, they received a phone call from Harvey Widner. He was employed by a contractor at Holloman AFB and had heard of the Schweers’ project via the “Holloman Wireless”. Harvey had also studied desert crops and had planted 400 seedling pistachio trees. A year later, the contractor left Holloman, and Harvey offered to sell his 400, two-year-trees to the Schweers and a family farm was born!

For the first five years, George and Marianne and their three children, Gordon, Laura, and Jean did the farming. After work, after school, weekends – the days were filled with farming, all done by hand. The first expansion of the groves was a 700 tree planting done with the help of the high school baseball team.  (Gordon was on the team and they were always looking for a fundraiser). Each subsequent expansion brought its own set of challenges. Being the only grove in New Mexico, there was no support industry for harvesting or processing. They had to develop their own processing operation or truck the nuts out of state for processing. Fabricating equipment, buying used, and trucking the nuts for salting and roasting, were all ongoing projects in the early years. (Necessity truly is the mother of invention!)

 The farm now contains 85 acres of groves, which is approximately 12,000 trees with spacing from 17’ x 17’ to 24’ x 24’. Daily field care, harvesting, processing, and marketing the finished product all take place on Eagle Ranch. A vineyard was planted in 2003, adding to the diversity of the farm. The vineyard now contains 18,000 grape vines and supports the line of “Heart of the Desert” wines begun in 2002.

-