Herndon Family Farms, based in Lyons, GA, started harvesting its “Vidalia’s Finest” onion crop the second full week of April and looks to have promotable volumes of high-quality product that should carry through August.

While the Vidalia season did not officially begin until April 27, the crop itself was early and growers could pack and ship onions providing USDA inspections were performed.

“I think they accomplished what they wanted by setting April 27 as the start date,” said John Williams, sales and marketing manager. “It didn’t let so much volume get out of there right out of the gate that people were pushing onions or digging earlier. I think that was probably the right move -- it backed everybody off from doing ads until the first of May and made sure this crop was ready. There are a lot of onions still in the field and we’ve got a long way to go.”

The crop was setting up to be a great one and early results have borne that out.

“It’s still looking good, we’re not seeing a lot of disease pressure,” Williams said. “It’s trending maybe more toward jumbos than colossals, but as far as quality, it’s looking good and we’re on pace with our harvest.”

While there will be ample supply of Vidalias, “I don’t think it’s a bumper crop where it’s just a crazy amount of volume, I think it’s going to be good volume, promotable volume and hopefully a good storage crop,” Williams said. “We just kind of have to wait and see, but I think we’re OK really. I think we’re in good shape.”

Herndon’s goal each year is to have an excellent supply of high-quality storage Vidalias to keep customers supplied through August. That being the case, Williams believes a good storage crop will fetch top dollar once the fresh season passes.

“I think you’ll see in June that a quality Vidalia will be in high demand,” he said. “We won’t get tight, but growers will sell hard through fresh season as they’re harvesting. I think when we start coming out of storage a quality Vidalia will be at a premium. We’re trying to sell through May but we’re trying to put up a good onion for storage to help our customers through June, July and August.”