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Speaker 1: Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey BrainStuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. There are very specific segments of our society engaged every year in a veritable arms race to grow the biggest pumpkin ever. There are local and national competitions and international governing bodies. Over the past 30 years, there have been new world record holders for heaviest pumpkin at least twice. 20 times, and the weight to beat has increased by nearly 2,000 pounds, or 900 kilos, since then. As I record this in October of 2026, the world record has been broken twice in the span of a week. One Ian Payton of Hampshire, England, won the title on October 3rd with a gourd that's 2,857 pounds. That's 1,296 kilos. That's heavier than a white rhino. But upset, on October 10th, a U.S. grower from Rhode Island by the name of Ron Wallace weighed in a pumpkin that's 3,156 pounds, or 1,431 kilos. That's as heavy as a Honda Civic. And this isn't Wallace's first pumpkin rodeo. He previously held the world record in 2006 and 2012, the latter with a pumpkin that was the world's first to weigh in at over a ton. So... Okay, how did we get here? Competitive vegetable growing has been a thing since at least the 1700s, but we humans make our own fun. Giant pumpkin varietals tend to be from the species Cucurbita maxima, though not all types of C. maxima are huge. Popular food varieties like buttercup squash and hubbards are in the same wide species. C. maxima has been cultivated by peoples in the Americas for thousands of years. But we start seeing records of giant ones in the 1800s, which is when agricultural shows started really picking up in communities around the world as a way to get together, share some tips, and show off what you've been up to. A cultivar called the mammoth won several records over the years. But as recently as the 1970s, a pumpkin that weighed even a fifth of today's record breakers was not but a dream. Giant pumpkins topped out around 400 pounds, or 180 kilos. The record holder from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, weighing in at 403 pounds, would stand for over seven decades. It was finally felled in 1976 by a grower from Pennsylvania, but not by much. Enter a Canadian farmer by the name of Howard W. Dill, now sometimes known as the Pumpkin King. At a young age, Dill left school in Nova Scotia and taught himself about plant genetics. He selectively cross-matched and bred giant pumpkins until he came up with a record-breaker in 1980, a gourd weighing 459 pounds, or 208 kilos. He patented the seeds under the varietal name Atlantic Giant. Today's winners are still based in that genetic lineage. For the article this episode is based on, HowStuffWorks spoke with Jim Myers, a professor of vegetable breeding at Oregon State University. He said, Genetics are important. It's based on Dill's Atlantic Giant. But to be competitive, you need to get seeds from pumpkin growers who have produced the biggest pumpkins. Every pumpkin champion comes from the offspring of those seeds. The Dill's Atlantic Giant seeds will grow pumpkin up to 300 pounds, or 140 kilos on average. Giant pumpkins are, in fact, the heaviest fruits in the entirety of the plant kingdom. And yes, botanically speaking, squash-like pumpkins are fruits. One of the contests that's seen multiple world record winners is the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California, which was in its 53rd year this year. It's where two-time record holder Travis Ginger, a horticulture teacher from Minnesota, weighed in his winning pumpkins. Ginger had been trying for 29 years before he nabbed a world record. He reported that he starts his seeds indoors in early April, then, once they germinate, transfers them to a greenhouse, one outside his bedroom window, where he can keep an eye on them. He starts with more than one seedling, as it's good to have a backup in case one fails. He pollinates his pumpkins around mid-June, then nurtures them until the competition in early October. During those 180 days, he spends two or three hours a day with them, watering and fertilizing them, pruning and burying their vines, arranging their grow lights and heaters, and keeping a close eye out for disease and rot. Beyond simple fertilization with 15 different fertilizers, he also treats the soil with microbes like fungi that help fix nitrogen for the pumpkins to use as they grow. Myers said... The environment is intensively managed to keep the plant from getting too hot or too cold or too thirsty. There is a certain amount of cultural management, such as hand pollinating, removing competing fruit, and making sure that the nodes of the vine are rooted. But the costs aren't only in time and effort. In 2023, Ginger told Slate Magazine that he had sponsors who sent him $ 15, 000 worth of fertilizer and other growing products, and that that was not the entire cost of growing these pumpkins. He spent $ 600 on the seeds alone. Although I get the feeling that competitors do it for the love of the gourd game, There does tend to be prize money for winners of these growing contests. For the Safeway World Championship, it's currently $ 9 a pound, plus an extra 30 grand if you break the world record. And it seems probable that we're going to keep seeing record breakers year after year. A paper published in the International Journal of Nonlinear Mechanics estimated that giant pumpkins of the proper shape could hold up their own weight up to 20,000 pounds. That's 9,000 kilos. You can grow a giant pumpkin in your home garden, but you'll need tons of space to make room for the vines to spread and climb. How much is tons? At least 1,200 square feet, or 110 square meters. A temperate climate helps, along with lots of sunshine and water. Giant pumpkins average around 120 days to mature, which is about the same as a regular pumpkin. The difference is that giant pumpkins grow much faster. sometimes gaining up to 60 pounds in a day. That's 27 kilos. Consistency is critical too, especially when it comes to watering. Depending on your schedule, irrigation and rainwater can make a giant pumpkin happy or make it explode from too much moisture. Or probably not explode, but they can crack, which will lead in microbes that'll rot the pumpkin from the inside out before it has a chance to reach its full potential. Which happens often. That's why competitive growers start several gourds to account for such losses. And you'd better protect your pumpkin if you plan on making it a prized one. Myers suggests building a temporary fence around it to keep kids, pets, and livestock out. He said, If you're growing in an urban setting, giant pumpkins will attract attention, and you may have people in your yard where you do not want them. Be prepared to spend a lot of time talking to passersby about pumpkins. Also, competitors must think about something that most home growers don't, transporting their giant pumpkins. For example, Ginger grows his in Minnesota, but has to ship them to California for official weighing. It involves a forklift, a heavy-duty pickup truck, and dodging elk while driving over mountains. So what happens to these massive gourds after they go to competition? The growers sometimes carve them for Halloween. The current Guinness World Record for heaviest jack-o'-lantern was achieved in 2023 with one of Ginger's pumpkins. An artist by the name of Eric Jones carved it with military veteran motifs to raise awareness about PTSD, and the design included a full-size service dog. Other growers sell theirs or trade or sell the seeds. But no pies are made from these pumpkins. Giant pumpkins are technically edible, just not very tasty. They're mostly water and grown for their structural capacity instead of their flavor. Though that doesn't mean they go to waste. Zoos often treat their animals to snacks or enrichment in the form of giant pumpkins. Farmers can also give pumpkins to animals like cattle as feed. And if you're listening to this episode as it comes out, Tualatin, Oregon is about to hold its annual West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta on Sunday, October 18th. Every year, people dress up in costumes and take the helm of carved-out gourds to paddle across the Lake of the Commons. And this is far from the only such pumpkin regatta. The first one was started up in Windsor, Nova Scotia in 1999 by Howard Dill's son, Danny Dill. But let's say you don't run a zoo and you're not planning on paddling out in any pumpkins you carve this year. When you're done with decorative gourd season— it's best, if possible, not to throw your pumpkins in the regular trash. When we send pumpkins to landfills, they leach water that carries gross stuff from the other trash out into local groundwater systems. And plant waste in landfills emits a lot of greenhouse gases as it decomposes. So if you can compost your pumpkin, that's great. And there are some local initiatives to make it more fun. We have to talk about pumpkin smashes. Illinois produces the most pumpkins in America. And starting in 2014, an environmental nonprofit called Scarce started hosting smashes. You bring your pumpkins. They provide giant mallets and other tools. You utterly destroy some gourds. and they compost the results. Over the past 15 years, they've composted over 3 million pounds of pumpkin. That's nearly 1.5 million kilos. They've thus diverted some 348,000 gallons of water from landfills. Some agricultural extensions host smashes now, too. If you don't have a smash in your area and you don't compost, you might be able to toss pumpkins in with yard trimmings. Check with your local services. Back in 2014, the aforementioned current world record holder for heaviest pumpkin, Ron Wallace, spoke with writer Lily Rothman for an article about giant pumpkins in Time magazine. And I'd like to end here on a quote from him. He said, Have you ever heard anybody say a bad word about a pumpkin? No. Pumpkins could solve the world's problems. Honestly, everybody loves a pumpkin. They do. And to see one grow that big. Today's episode is based on the article, How Do You Grow a 2,000-lb Pumpkin? on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Muriel Vega, with additional material from my food science and history podcast, Savor. BrainStuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey BrainStuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. There are very specific segments of our society engaged every year in a veritable arms race to grow the biggest pumpkin ever. There are local and national competitions and international governing bodies. Over the past 30 years, there have been new world record holders for heaviest pumpkin at least twice. 20 times, and the weight to beat has increased by nearly 2,000 pounds, or 900 kilos, since then. As I record this in October of 2026, the world record has been broken twice in the span of a week. One Ian Payton of Hampshire, England, won the title on October 3rd with a gourd that's 2,857 pounds. That's 1,296 kilos. That's heavier than a white rhino. But upset, on October 10th, a U.S. grower from Rhode Island by the name of Ron Wallace weighed in a pumpkin that's 3,156 pounds, or 1,431 kilos. That's as heavy as a Honda Civic. And this isn't Wallace's first pumpkin rodeo. He previously held the world record in 2006 and 2012, the latter with a pumpkin that was the world's first to weigh in at over a ton. So... Okay, how did we get here? Competitive vegetable growing has been a thing since at least the 1700s, but we humans make our own fun. Giant pumpkin varietals tend to be from the species Cucurbita maxima, though not all types of C. maxima are huge. Popular food varieties like buttercup squash and hubbards are in the same wide species. C. maxima has been cultivated by peoples in the Americas for thousands of years. But we start seeing records of giant ones in the 1800s, which is when agricultural shows started really picking up in communities around the world as a way to get together, share some tips, and show off what you've been up to. A cultivar called the mammoth won several records over the years. But as recently as the 1970s, a pumpkin that weighed even a fifth of today's record breakers was not but a dream. Giant pumpkins topped out around 400 pounds, or 180 kilos. The record holder from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, weighing in at 403 pounds, would stand for over seven decades. It was finally felled in 1976 by a grower from Pennsylvania, but not by much. Enter a Canadian farmer by the name of Howard W. Dill, now sometimes known as the Pumpkin King. At a young age, Dill left school in Nova Scotia and taught himself about plant genetics. He selectively cross-matched and bred giant pumpkins until he came up with a record-breaker in 1980, a gourd weighing 459 pounds, or 208 kilos. He patented the seeds under the varietal name Atlantic Giant. Today's winners are still based in that genetic lineage. For the article this episode is based on, HowStuffWorks spoke with Jim Myers, a professor of vegetable breeding at Oregon State University. He said, Genetics are important. It's based on Dill's Atlantic Giant. But to be competitive, you need to get seeds from pumpkin growers who have produced the biggest pumpkins. Every pumpkin champion comes from the offspring of those seeds. The Dill's Atlantic Giant seeds will grow pumpkin up to 300 pounds, or 140 kilos on average. Giant pumpkins are, in fact, the heaviest fruits in the entirety of the plant kingdom. And yes, botanically speaking, squash-like pumpkins are fruits. One of the contests that's seen multiple world record winners is the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California, which was in its 53rd year this year. It's where two-time record holder Travis Ginger, a horticulture teacher from Minnesota, weighed in his winning pumpkins. Ginger had been trying for 29 years before he nabbed a world record. He reported that he starts his seeds indoors in early April, then, once they germinate, transfers them to a greenhouse, one outside his bedroom window, where he can keep an eye on them. He starts with more than one seedling, as it's good to have a backup in case one fails. He pollinates his pumpkins around mid-June, then nurtures them until the competition in early October. During those 180 days, he spends two or three hours a day with them, watering and fertilizing them, pruning and burying their vines, arranging their grow lights and heaters, and keeping a close eye out for disease and rot. Beyond simple fertilization with 15 different fertilizers, he also treats the soil with microbes like fungi that help fix nitrogen for the pumpkins to use as they grow. Myers said... The environment is intensively managed to keep the plant from getting too hot or too cold or too thirsty. There is a certain amount of cultural management, such as hand pollinating, removing competing fruit, and making sure that the nodes of the vine are rooted. But the costs aren't only in time and effort. In 2023, Ginger told Slate Magazine that he had sponsors who sent him $ 15, 000 worth of fertilizer and other growing products, and that that was not the entire cost of growing these pumpkins. He spent $ 600 on the seeds alone. Although I get the feeling that competitors do it for the love of the gourd game, There does tend to be prize money for winners of these growing contests. For the Safeway World Championship, it's currently $ 9 a pound, plus an extra 30 grand if you break the world record. And it seems probable that we're going to keep seeing record breakers year after year. A paper published in the International Journal of Nonlinear Mechanics estimated that giant pumpkins of the proper shape could hold up their own weight up to 20,000 pounds. That's 9,000 kilos. You can grow a giant pumpkin in your home garden, but you'll need tons of space to make room for the vines to spread and climb. How much is tons? At least 1,200 square feet, or 110 square meters. A temperate climate helps, along with lots of sunshine and water. Giant pumpkins average around 120 days to mature, which is about the same as a regular pumpkin. The difference is that giant pumpkins grow much faster. sometimes gaining up to 60 pounds in a day. That's 27 kilos. Consistency is critical too, especially when it comes to watering. Depending on your schedule, irrigation and rainwater can make a giant pumpkin happy or make it explode from too much moisture. Or probably not explode, but they can crack, which will lead in microbes that'll rot the pumpkin from the inside out before it has a chance to reach its full potential. Which happens often. That's why competitive growers start several gourds to account for such losses. And you'd better protect your pumpkin if you plan on making it a prized one. Myers suggests building a temporary fence around it to keep kids, pets, and livestock out. He said, If you're growing in an urban setting, giant pumpkins will attract attention, and you may have people in your yard where you do not want them. Be prepared to spend a lot of time talking to passersby about pumpkins. Also, competitors must think about something that most home growers don't, transporting their giant pumpkins. For example, Ginger grows his in Minnesota, but has to ship them to California for official weighing. It involves a forklift, a heavy-duty pickup truck, and dodging elk while driving over mountains. So what happens to these massive gourds after they go to competition? The growers sometimes carve them for Halloween. The current Guinness World Record for heaviest jack-o'-lantern was achieved in 2023 with one of Ginger's pumpkins. An artist by the name of Eric Jones carved it with military veteran motifs to raise awareness about PTSD, and the design included a full-size service dog. Other growers sell theirs or trade or sell the seeds. But no pies are made from these pumpkins. Giant pumpkins are technically edible, just not very tasty. They're mostly water and grown for their structural capacity instead of their flavor. Though that doesn't mean they go to waste. Zoos often treat their animals to snacks or enrichment in the form of giant pumpkins. Farmers can also give pumpkins to animals like cattle as feed. And if you're listening to this episode as it comes out, Tualatin, Oregon is about to hold its annual West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta on Sunday, October 18th. Every year, people dress up in costumes and take the helm of carved-out gourds to paddle across the Lake of the Commons. And this is far from the only such pumpkin regatta. The first one was started up in Windsor, Nova Scotia in 1999 by Howard Dill's son, Danny Dill. But let's say you don't run a zoo and you're not planning on paddling out in any pumpkins you carve this year. When you're done with decorative gourd season— it's best, if possible, not to throw your pumpkins in the regular trash. When we send pumpkins to landfills, they leach water that carries gross stuff from the other trash out into local groundwater systems. And plant waste in landfills emits a lot of greenhouse gases as it decomposes. So if you can compost your pumpkin, that's great. And there are some local initiatives to make it more fun. We have to talk about pumpkin smashes. Illinois produces the most pumpkins in America. And starting in 2014, an environmental nonprofit called Scarce started hosting smashes. You bring your pumpkins. They provide giant mallets and other tools. You utterly destroy some gourds. and they compost the results. Over the past 15 years, they've composted over 3 million pounds of pumpkin. That's nearly 1.5 million kilos. They've thus diverted some 348,000 gallons of water from landfills. Some agricultural extensions host smashes now, too. If you don't have a smash in your area and you don't compost, you might be able to toss pumpkins in with yard trimmings. Check with your local services. Back in 2014, the aforementioned current world record holder for heaviest pumpkin, Ron Wallace, spoke with writer Lily Rothman for an article about giant pumpkins in Time magazine. And I'd like to end here on a quote from him. He said, Have you ever heard anybody say a bad word about a pumpkin? No. Pumpkins could solve the world's problems. Honestly, everybody loves a pumpkin. They do. And to see one grow that big. Today's episode is based on the article, How Do You Grow a 2,000-lb Pumpkin? on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Muriel Vega, with additional material from my food science and history podcast, Savor. BrainStuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
