Texas Symbols, Vegetable: Sweet Onion

Adopted on May 7, 1997.

The sweet onion was adopted as Texas' official state onion in 1997. The onion is a member of the pungent Allium genus of the lily family, which also includes garlic, leeks, shallots, and scallions. The word onion comes to us from the Latin unio (meaning large pearl), which in Middle English became unyon. Most commercially-grown are of the common or seed (A. cepa) variety.

The onion was considered as valuable as gold in the Middle Ages and has long been a symbol of eternity due to their structural composition of layers within layers forming a sphere. The onion has amazingly been the focus of some mighty strange legislation over the years. For example, in Nacogdoches, Texas, it's against the law for "young women" to indulge in any raw onions after 6 pm!

Sweet onion varieties have been traced back to a packet of seeds from the Canary Islands shipped to South Texas in 1898. Those Bermuda onion seeds were planted near the city of Cotulla. The sweet onion crop was an instant success. The onions were shipped in 1899 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they were so enthusiastically received that a larger acreage was planted.

By 1904, approximately 500 acres of Bermuda onions were planted in South Texas. In spring, 1907, 1,011 carloads of onions were shipped from South and Southwest Texas; in 1908, production had more than doubled, and in 1909, 12 counties shipped 2,920 carloads. Shipments reached 6,735 carloads in 1917; this figure was not exceeded until 1928 and 1929 when the total movements were 7,055 and 7,232 carloads, respectively. The largest movement in 50 years for a single season was 10,164 carloads in 1946.

In 1933, the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station began a cooperative breeding program with the U. S. Department of Agriculture to develop new hybrids and varieties.

The Canary Islands, principally Teneriffe Island, produced most of the onion seed planted in Texas until about 1946. The two types of Bermuda onions generally grown in Texas were the Yellow Bermuda and White Bermuda and Crystal Wax.

Texas 1015s, the Lone Star State's most famous onions, taste sweet. They don't make you cry either because they contain very little of a substance called pyruvate, which is released during chopping, causing tears. According to the onion's developer, Dr. Leonard Pike, of the Texas A&M Vegetable Improvement Center, 1015s mild taste makes them perfect for salads and sandwiches.

ONIONS are Texas' leading vegetable crop. Onion sales bring the state between $70 and $100 million per year and the onion industry has an overall impact of about $350 million per year on the Texas economy. Most of the sweet yellow onions, which people all over the world enjoy because you can "eat them like an apple", can trace their origin to the Lone Star state.


What does the “1015” mean?

That's the best date to plant it, October 15.