Mar 3, 2020

America’s sweet onion season kicks off in Texas

While onions are available throughout the country year-round, spring is a special time. That’s when America’s sweet onions start coming out of the ground, providing consumers with locally grown, fresh, sweet and crunchy onions for the dinner table.

The Texas 1015s kick off the season, coming out first in March. They represent a lasting legacy of sweet onion growth in Texas, home to America’s first sweet onion crops. Texas began growing sweet onions from Bermuda beginning in 1898. Growers shipped the onions to Wisconsin in 1899, creating an annual tradition. By the 1940s, the state had shipped its largest crop of onions out of state, with more than 10,000 carloads.  Those onions and continued seed development, eventually brought sweet onions to Vidalia, Ga.

The Texas 1015s, named for their annual planting date of Oct. 15, were developed by Dr. Leonard Pike out of Texas A&M in the 1980s, and now represent the main sweet crop bout of Texas every year. Dr. Pike died last year.

Sweet onions are known for their sweet flavor, so much so that they could be eaten like apples. They are usually available for a few months at a time, having a shorter shelf-life than other onion varieties across the country.

America’s Sweets season kicks with Texas 1015s and are followed by Vidalias out of Georgia, Walla Walla out of Washington, and California Imperials and Sweetie Sweets in July. The season is capped off by Maui Sweets come out of Hawaii and Yensis sweet onions out of Alaska. All onions’ flavors are influenced heavily by the type of soils in which they are grown.

Onions are one of the oldest vegetables across the globe and represent an approximate $8 billion marketplace in America. They contain 11 vitamins and minerals and are naturally fat, cholesterol and sodium-free. They have been shown to help reduce cardiovascular disease, combat some cancers, and diabetes, and they can be cooked in a variety of ways to enhance flavors. Those many skills are why the National Onion Association calls it “Nature’s Ninja.” For more on Natures’ Ninja, go to www.onions-usa.org.

– National Onion Association. The National Onion Association was incorporated in 1913 and represents more than 500 onion growers, shippers, packers and suppliers throughout the United States.