As March was coming to an end, the Mexican onion deal was winding down, which is very good news for South Texas onion growers and shippers.

“The Mexican deal is ending up a lot better than we thought it was going to,” Don Ed Holmes, owner of The Onion House LLC in Weslaco, TX, said March 26. “Right now we are getting $12 for jumbos and $10 for medium. It looks like this market will hold.”

The longtime onion expert said the late crop out of Mexico that crosses in South Texas is lighter than expected, which has led to a stronger market. He anticipated that Mexico would stop crossing onions into the United States around April 9. The storage onions from Idaho, Oregon and Washington are also finishing up. Texas growers will start digging onions around April 6, meaning the overlap with Mexico will be almost non-existent.

“And Texas’ onion acreage is down substantially,” Holmes said. “So we believe we can hold the price through April.”

Holmes believes that Texas might only have about 3,500 acres of its well-known spring onions that will be marketed in the typical six weeks or so that encompasses early April to mid-May.

“We are down about 1,000 acres on the front end and another 1,000 acres planted are for the late May/June period,” he said.

He explained that the sweet Texas onion, marketed for years as the famous Texas 1015 (the name comes from planting the variety on or around Oct. 15), was designed to be ready for harvest around April 15, with harvest lasting for five to six weeks.

But in recent years an intermediate onion variety has been developed that goes into the ground a bit later and gets harvested later — late May and through much of June. The variety has been bred to withstand rain and the heat that can descend upon South Texas in late spring.

The Onion House hasn’t planted that variety this year but others have.

“It did really well last year,” said Holmes. “But we want to watch it another year to see how it does.”

He noted that if it does respond well to some of the environmental conditions that Texas weather can conjure up in late spring, it offers growers in South Texas an excellent opportunity to expand their season.

As far as competing against other onion-producing areas at that time of year, Holmes is not overly concerned. “It boils down to transportation,” he said. “And we have a lot of trucks coming in here [to South Texas] all the time.”

The Onion House executive explained that many factors have combined to make the Rio Grande Valley a hub of economic activity. Mexico has built a cross-country highway that connects the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, making it very easy for manufacturers to cross their products into the United States through Texas.

Additionally, the state has a very business-friendly reputation, which has caused many U.S. manufacturers to open up plants in the Lone Star state, which has also increased truck traffic. Business between the United States and Mexico is booming with Texas being the leading transfer hub.

With so many trucks coming in and out of the area, Holmes said securing transportation is relatively easy, which is music to the ears of buyers.

He contrasts that with California and its ever-increasing regulatory burden on truckers and business, and other problems that have resulted in less economic activity in the Golden State. He noted that California has many advantages, but a four-year drought and labor shortages add to its woes. Holmes said anything that can lengthen the Texas growing season is only a positive.

The Onion House executive said that “status quo” is the best phrase to characterize the company’s business this year, as it has no significant changes in its offerings to the buying community.

However, the changing of a field practice should result in better arrivals and longer shelf life for its onions.

“In the field we have converted to bins and are no long harvesting in burlap sacks,” he said.

Holmes explained that last season the company used both the traditional burlap sack and the bin to harvest its onions and transport them to the packing facility. He compared the two harvesting methods and transport materials and found bin harvesting to be far superior.

“We experienced less bruising and had far fewer arrival problems,” he said. “The onions in bins also had a longer shelf life.”

Consequently, for the 2015 season, the Onion House is 100 percent in bins. Holmes said switching to that method is a little bit more expensive, but the good arrivals and less bruising more than make up for the additional expense.