Tina Collins and her husband Ronny operate Collins Family Farms in Cobbtown. The small southeast Georgia community is in the heart of the 20-county area defined by the Georgia Legislature as where onions grown can be labeled as “Vidalia.”
The Collinses grow 500 acres of sweet onions. This year’s Vidalia onion crop started out as seeds of granex yellow onions, planted in fields in September and October. After about eight weeks in the ground, the seeds have sprouted. The seedlings are pulled by hand, trimmed and moved to production fields, where they will grow to full size.
“We try to have the seedlings in the production fields by November,” Tina Collins said, “and around mid-April we are clipping the greens as the necks get weak and begin to fall over, and we leave the onions to dry out in the field.”
Ronny Collins, who was born and grew up in Cobbtown in a family that raised tobacco and cattle, is one of the 13 members of that advisory board. He started growing sweet onions in 1980 on 10 acres of family land. His wife worked alongside him in a family insurance agency until she decided to join her husband in the world of agriculture in 2006.
In 2008, she founded Vidalia Sweet Produce, which is certified as 100 percent woman-owned by the National Women Business Owners Corp. It’s a designation that she welcomed and one she hopes will encourage other women to take leadership positions in the field.
“The produce business is tough, but don’t ever think you can’t do it,” Collins said, “because you can.”
More on the 500-acre Cobbtown operation that produces prized Vidalias
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