Pumpkin weighing 2,749 pounds wins California contest, sets world record for biggest gourd

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A Minnesota horticulture teacher set a world record in California on Monday for the heaviest pumpkin after growing a giant jack-o’-lantern gourd weighing 2,749 pounds (1,247 kilograms).

Travis Gienger of Anoka, Minnesota, won the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California, with an enormous, lumpy, orange pumpkin that could produce at least 687 feet.

“I was not expecting that. It was quite the feeling,” said Gienger, 43, who has been growing them for nearly 30 years and last year set a new U.S. record for growing a giant gourd.

The previous world record for heaviest pumpkin was set by a grower in Italy who produced a 2,702-pound (1,226-kilogram) squash in 2021, according to Guinness World Records.

Gienger grows his gourds in his backyard. He said this year he decided to give his plants extra care, watering them up to 12 times a day and feeding and fertilizing them a bit more than usual.

Gienger, a landscape and horticulture professor at Anoka Technical College, has been growing pumpkins since he was a teenager, inspired by his father who also grew them. He first competed in Half Moon Bay’s annual weigh-off in 2020 and has won three of the city’s last four contests.

“I put in the work so that I can put a smile on people’s faces and it’s just so nice coming out here to see everyone in this town,” he said.

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