Awaji onions

Awaji Island sits at Hyogo’s southern edge, where warm Setouchi weather and long sunshine shape fields of onions, rice, fruit, flowers, and livestock farming. The JA Awajishima area around Minamiawaji includes the Mihara Plain, and its well-drained soils give onion roots a steady winter field.

Rainfall averages about 1,289 millimeters a year, with more rain from June to September and less in winter. The local pattern is specific: warmth, sun, drainage, and a winter with fewer heavy rains.

Each crop begins around September, when seed is sown for the next season. Seedlings move into fields in November or December, then stay through the cold months before harvest arrives in May or June; the full growing period lasts about six to seven months.

Onion cultivation on Awaji Island is traced to an 1888 trial in old Kashu Village, now part of Minamiawaji City. After World War II, varieties suited to the island spread more widely, and by 1964 the cultivated area had passed 3,000 hectares.

In South Awaji, onions often follow rice in the same fields. After the rice season, fields are prepared for onions, while livestock manure is used for soil building; rice, onions, and cattle farming are tied together in the year’s farm work.

This production cycle of rice, onions, and manure-based soil building has lasted for more than a century. It turns the South Awaji field into a year-round sequence: rice season, onion season, and soil preparation returning to the ground.

After harvest, onions may be hung in local onion sheds. Natural wind moves through the sheds and dries the onions slowly, a step connected with stronger sweetness and deeper color.

Some onions go into large cold storage from mid-July through August. Storage helps maintain quality, so onions harvested in May and June can keep their condition into autumn, winter, and early spring.

When sautéed, Awaji Island onions have a total sugar figure of about 9 to 10%. Pyruvic acid, which relates to pungency, is lower than in the compared onions; the texture is also described as soft, which makes the sweetness easier to notice after cooking.

These traits are tied to the field calendar. Six to seven months of growth, variety selection, and slow natural drying in onion sheds all sit behind the sweet, soft, lower-pungency profile.

Early varieties are used for raw sliced salads and dressings, where mild pungency and sweetness matter. Late varieties move into heated dishes such as onion steak and onion soup, where cooking draws out sweetness and soft texture.

From the May-June harvest to onion-shed drying and cold storage, the eating season stretches beyond the field. Awaji Island onions show two clear faces at the table: crisp raw slices and warm dishes that turn steadily sweeter.