INNOVATION
No More Tears
Researchers create milder onions that won’t make you cry By Sara Schwartz
Washington and Nevada and sold in 20 states, including Texas, California and F YOU’VE EVER WONDERED how New York. Lyndon Johnson, senior crop to avoid tearing up while chopping sales manager for Bayer Vegetable Seed onions, you’re not alone. “How can said the company has signed a three-year I reduce tearing when cutting an agreement with its current partners that onion?” is one of the most commonly will extend into the 2020 season. (Farmasked questions posed to the National ers interested in growing Sunions can visit Onion Association. (How to alleviate iheartsunions.com for more information.) “onion breath” is also on “We are assessing the list, too, for interthe current potential of ested parties.) Sunions in the U.S. If, T TRY TO RY SUN NIONSS, When cut, onions reafter this time, we see a VISIT IH HEA ART RTSUNI NION ONS. S CO C M lease syn-Propanethial need for more acres than TO O FIND D A RE RETA T ILER -S-oxide, a nearly unour current partners are NEAR R YOU. pronounceable chemical able to grow, then we will irritant that causes our expand,” Johnson said. eyes to water. ResearchTo ensure Sunions are ers were looking to create a milder onion, tearless and sweet when they hit grocery one that wasn’t as tear-inducing, and stores, the variety goes through rigorous debuted Sunions late last year, touted as testing. The current crop will be available “America’s first tearless and sweet onion.” through April and then you’ll see them The name is reflective of the long-day onagain in the fall. Sunions stay fresh up to ion varieties, which grow through the late spring and summer months, and receive the most sunlight. Sunions, (rhymes with Funyuns, the puffy processed onion-flavored snack), were created by Bayer Crop Science, a division of parent company Bayer, that focuses on creating innovative agricultural solutions. For more than three decades, teams there used good old-fashioned crossbreeding to produce a less-pungent onion variety that is sweet and mild. And the longer you keep Sunions, the sweeter and milder they’ll become; they were bred so that volatile compounds decrease over time — the opposite of what happens with most onions. Kim Reddin, director of public and industry relations at the National Onion Association, noted that the increasing mild taste was “unique” — and newsworthy. “The industry has been looking for something like this for quite some time.” Sunions are grown by three growers in
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six weeks if stored properly in a cold, dark place. For Reddin, the tearless factor wasn’t a selling point: “I like the idea of chopping onions and crying,” she said, laughing. “It’s sort of therapeutic. There is no other vegetable that makes me cry — and they’re happy tears.”
In January, Bayer introduced 2.4 million pounds of Sunions. In five years, the company hopes to expand production to 200 million pounds. SOURCE Bayer
PROVIDED BY SUNIONS