For Walla Walla sweet onions, the smell of successful year

WALLA WALLA — A sweet, homegrown and enduring family tradition is unfolding again this summer in the fields surrounding Walla Walla.

Walla Walla sweet onions, Washington's official state vegetable, are being hand-picked, processed and shipped to retail stores regionally and nationally.

Walla Walla sweets have been coveted by consumers for decades because of their exceptional sweetness, mild flavor and jumbo size.

Since 1995, Walla Walla sweets have been designated a unique variety that can be grown only in a federally protected growing area encompassing the Walla Walla Valley and part of northeast Oregon under a U.S. Department of Agriculture marketing order.

And growers preserve that uniqueness by growing and harvesting by hand their own seeds, which have traits developed over the generations by grower families — many of them descendants of Italian immigrants. Some who raise those sweets today are the second or third generation of their families to do so.

"We are preserving the integrity of the crop," said Kathy Fry, manager of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Marketing Committee.

There are 27 growers in the marketing committee. They raise sweets on everything from half-acre plots to sell at local farmers markets to producers who have over 200 acres and ship to major retail chains, Fry said.

Sweet onions comprise a fraction of all the U.S.-grown onions, a crop that is the nation's third-largest vegetable industry, said Kimberly Reddin, spokeswoman for the National Onion Association. There are only about 1,000 growers of all varieties in the U.S., and Washington in 2008 ranked as the top state with 21,720 acres and 1.24 billion pounds produced, she said.

But sweet onions are a "small but mighty" segment of the industry, Reddin said.

Vidalias, grown in Georgia, are No. 1 in sales among sweet onions, representing a third of all onion sales nationally, said Wendy Brannen, executive director of the Vidalia Onion Committee.

Growers of Walla Walla sweets and their fans, though, view their product as the sweetest.

"Ours are thicker, more succulent than Vidalias. They tend to be smaller in size," said Mike Locati of Locati Farms, a third-generation grower. "I like the texture of our Walla Wallas better."

And this year's crop, particularly the super colossals, is exceptionally sweet, said Ben Cavalli Jr., owner of Cavalli Onion Acres and a third-generation grower.

Cavalli credits slow, steady rains during a cool and wet late spring and the area's rich soil.

A mild climate also contributes to the properties of the sweets. But Walla Wallas also have a short shelf life and are fragile enough that they must be harvested by hand, Locati said.

Harvest this year began in late June, delayed at least 10 days by the cool late spring. It's expected to run through mid-August.