HALF MOON BAY, Calif — A horticulture teacher from Anoka, Minnesota set a new world record in California on Monday for the heaviest pumpkin after growing a giant gourd weighing 2,749 pounds.
Travis Gienger of Anoka won the 50th 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 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 squash in 2021, according to Guinness World Records.
Gienger hauled the pumpkin to California with his dad and father-in-law, driving 35 hours for the weigh-off.
"It's a 184-day labor of love. I start the seed April 10; I pollinate the pumpkin around June 5 this year; and the pumpkin's about 120 days old when it's picked. So it's a long season. You're out there every day burying vines, trimming, pruning, watching for things that might happen on the pumpkin," Gienger told KARE 11 via Zoom from California.
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 fertilizing them a bit more than usual.
Gienger, a landscape and horticulture teacher 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 giant pumpkin contests.
What's next?
"It's kind of bittersweet because you're there. You don't need to go any farther but I really feel like I lost a pumpkin this year that would've been much bigger than this one. So part of me wants to grow that seed and try it again," Gienger said.
The pumpkin champ won a $30,000 prize for growing the biggest pumpkin and setting a new world record. But he said the reactions are priceless.
"That's why we do it... to put smiles on people's faces," Gienger said. "But today, I had a smile on my face."
The gargantuan pumpkin will be on display in Half Moon Bay along with the three runner-ups 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.
Gienger told KARE 11 that the pumpkin will most likely come back to Minnesota for an event the weekend before Halloween before it gets carved into a jack-o'-lantern.
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