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| Photo Credit: AP. |
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) — A horticulture teacher from Minnesota set a new U.S. record Monday for the heaviest pumpkin after raising a giant gourd weighing 2,560 pounds.
Travis
Gienger, of Anoka, Minnesota set the new record and won an annual pumpkin-weighing
contest in Northern California.
“Minnesota
has a great midyear, but our spring in our parts is really, really tough. So to
do it in Minnesota, it just shouldn’t happen,” Gienger said. “It’s like winning
the Tour de France on a big wheel. You know, you can only hope, but it worked.”
Gienger
drove the gargantuan gourd for 35 hours to see his hard work pay off at the
49th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, south of San
Francisco.
“You think
driving in a snowstorm is bad? Try driving one of these things,” he said.
Gienger, who
also won the same contest in Northern California in 2020, broke a record set
last week in New York where a grower raised a massive pumpkin weighing 2,554
pounds.
A grower in
Italy holds the world record for the heaviest pumpkin. He grew a 2,702-pound
squash in 2021, according to Guinness World Records.