The Washington storage onion season was moving into high gear the second week of August, with demand said to be particularly good for single-center sweet reds.

Shippers were nearly unanimous in describing the season as a few days late because of rains during planting season, but optimism was prevalent as volume started to ramp up. Handlers said pricing was steady.

Indicative of the later start were truck shipments behind those of last year's out of both the Walla Walla district and the Columbia Basin. However, piggyback shipments were ahead by nearly double.

SAN ANTONIO, TX  With Texas fruit and vegetable producers suffering this season due to the shortage of available labor, immigration reform was the major topic of discussion during the Texas Produce Association convention, held here Aug. 10-12.

The issue was deemed so important that both the breakfast and lunch general sessions on Aug. 11 featured speakers who addressed immigration reform, with a press conference on the topic held between the two sessions.

Mangos are said to be the most consumed fruit in the world with the United States lagging behind because it does not have domestic production or widespread interest.

FRESNO, CA  Z&S Fresh, a broad-line fruit and vegetable grower, shipper, distributor and broker, here, has reached an agreement with General Mills under which Z&S is authorized to ship an expanding assortment of produce items under the "Old El Paso Fresh" brand.

The product line will tie in with General Mills' Old El Paso brand used for an assortment of Hispanic items in the grocery department.

The MushRoom, a portable eatery, will highlight the Dublin, CA-based Mushroom Council's September promotion of National Mushroom Month. This is the first major promotion in the Mushroom Councils return to such efforts since 2000, when a grower sued the council for using funds he contributed for a promotion and won, ceasing the councils authority to run promotions. Subsequent complex legal events reversed that decision in 2005. The suing grower went out of business in the interim.

In a landmark decision following protracted litigation over the Sugraone, a seedless grape variety owned by Sun World International LLC, a federal court judge has found Sun Pacific Farming Cooperative Inc. and related parties liable for fraud and conversion for Sun Pacific's unlawful taking of Sun Worlds property. The court ordered Sun Pacific to stop growing and destroy the Sugraone variety grapevines in question and pay damages of nearly $300,000 to Sun World.