Go big or gourd home: Pumpkin weighing 1247kg shatters world record

Horticulure teacher Travis Gienger reacts after winning Safeway 50th annual World Championship Pumpkin weigh-off. Photo / AP

A Minnesota horticulture teacher set a new world record in California on Monday for the heaviest pumpkin after growing a giant jack-o’-lantern gourd weighing 2749 pounds (1247kg).

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

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

Travis Gienger holds his two-year-old daughter Lily with his pumpkin called "Michael Jordan". Photo / AP

The previous world record for heaviest pumpkin was set by a grower in Italy who produced a 2702-pound (1226kg) squash in 2021, according to Guinness World Records.

Gienger grows his gourds in the pumpkin patch 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 fertilising them a bit more than usual.

A landscape and horticulture teacher at Anoka Technical College, Gienger 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 giant pumpkin contests.

The final four pumpkins to be weighed lifted to the crowd. Photo / AP

“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.

The pumpkin champ won a $30,000 prize for growing the biggest pumpkin and setting a new world record.

The gargantuan pumpkin will be on display in Half Moon Bay along with the three runners-up through next weekend when visitors to the city’s Art and Pumpkin Festival will be able to take photos with Gienger and the enormous gourd.