A Minnesota horticultural teacher set a new world record for growing the heaviest pumpkin – a gargantuan jack-o’-lantern gourd weighing 2,749lbs.
Travis Gienger set the record at the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California. The plump pumpkin beat the previous record, set in 2021 by Stefano Cutrupi of Italy, by 47lbs.
“This pumpkin is called Michael Jordan because it’s the year [20]23… and he’s the greatest basketball player of all time,” Gienger told KSTP-TV in Minnesota. (Jordan’s jersey number was 23.) It “started out basketball round, and I said this is going to be a perfectly round basketball-shaped pumpkin”, Gienger said.
Michael Jordan grew into an enormous, lumpy, orange pumpkin, equivalent to about 2,110 basketballs, or about 275 jack-o’-lantern gourds. For comparison, Michael Jordan, the basketball player, weighed 216lbs during his NBA career.
Gienger spent about $15,000 to feed and care for Michael Jordan as the pumpkin ballooned in his back yard, and he carefully drove it to California from Minnesota last weekend, according to SFGate.
The 43-year-old landscape and horticulture teacher at Anoka Technical College has been growing pumpkins since he was a teen, carrying on a family tradition. He has won three of the last four Pumpkin Weigh-Offs. This year, he won $30,000 and the equivalent of a Super Bowl ring, designed by a local jeweler. He told SFGate he planned to reinvest the winnings in growing an even bigger pumpkin next year.
“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.
Many of Gienger’s rivals at the weigh-off on Monday were from nearby Napa and Sonoma. Minnesota’s relatively cold weather can prove less than ideal for pumpkin growing, with temperatures in the spring swinging wildly from scorching hot to near freezing.
Nick Kennedy, who won second place, told local news outlets he would do it even if there were no prize money involved. “It has to be a labor of love,” he told ABC 7. “Watching these things grow – this thing grew 66lbs a day at its peak so it’s like watching a balloon blow up in front of you, basically.”
The three heaviest pumpkins will be on display in Half Moon Bay through next weekend, so visitors can take photos with the enormous gourds.
