ATLANTA – Georgia’s prized produce will hit the shelves a bit early this year.

Shipments of the Vidalia onion started moving Wednesday, which was the first day farmers could push the state’s most famous vegetable out the door.

“You probably won’t see any Vidalias on the shelves until Friday or even Saturday,” said John Williams, director of sales and marketing at L.G. Herndon Jr. Farms in Lyons.

That may be too late for those trying to shop early for the Easter holiday, but the harvest is earlier than usual, thanks to a mild winter that accelerated the growing season.

“They just grew quicker and bigger and were ready to go,” Williams said. “You’ve got to kind of go with mother nature there.”

That has put stress on growers and workers who already labor under a tight timeframe to haul in the harvest, said Cliff Riner with the Vidalia Onion and Vegetable Research Center. It likely leaves them with an even smaller window.

Any hot spring days or rain spells could mean trouble.

“A lot can happen in the next three weeks,” Riner said.

For now, Riner said this year’s crop could possibly match last year’s productivity, even with about 800 fewer acres planted. About 5.6 million bushels were sold last year.

Onions – and not just Vidalias – routinely rank as the state’s top vegetable crop, with about 12,000 acres grown every year. They were worth about $149 million in 2015, which is the most recent year for which data is available.

The Vidalia onion, which is sweetened in the low-sulfur soil of south Georgia, is also a carefully guarded brand. State rules dictate what qualifies an onion as a Vidalia, as opposed to a “Georgia sweet” or a more generic “sweet onion.”

Multiple varieties grown in a 20-county region can claim the trademarked Vidalia label – but only if they are packaged after a date set by the state’s commissioner of agriculture, Gary Black.

This year, that date was April 12, which was the earliest start in five years.

“I dug my first onions the last week of March,” said Brett McLain with McLain Farms in Lyons. “I don’t remember ever digging onions in March.”

A grower, McLain also chairs the committee that advises Black on when to let growers take their onions to market.

This was a source of controversy a few years ago when Black abolished a loophole that allowed some eager growers to sell their Vidalia onions early if they could pass an inspection. His authority was challenged in court, which sided with Black two years ago.

McLain said this week that he believes the hard-and-fast start date has helped restore the quality of the crop and protect the onion’s reputation, which has a following beyond Georgia’s state lines.

He likened the sweet onion to a banana.

“When it’s ripe, it’s really good,” he said. “You harvest an onion too soon and the shelf life is not very good and the taste is not there because the sugars come later.”

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.