Plumped-up pumpkins vie to be world heavyweight champ
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Giant gourds are plumping up in the final weeks leading up to California's iconic Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off.
The big picture: Travis Gienger from Anoka, Minnesota, won with a pumpkin weighing 2,749 pounds last year, setting a world record.
- Gienger has won the Annual Safeway World Championship Weigh-off competition three times.
How it works: Pumpkins travel from across the country to Half Moon Bay, California — known as the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth — and are weighed using a 5-ton-capacity digital scale.
- Atlantic Giant seeds, similar in size to a peach pit, are usually planted in April.
- Giant pumpkins can grow upwards of 50 pounds per day in the right conditions, but once cut from their vines, pumpkins can lose 6 to 8 pounds per day.
What they're saying: Since the competition started in 1974, pumpkins have grown larger each year, with the first pumpkin weighing in at 132 pounds and weights reaching the thousands by 2001. "I do feel it is mainly genetics of the pumpkins mixed with better growing biotechnology," Gienger tells Axios.
- After winning in 2023, Gienger's pumpkin traveled from California to New York to be carved up for various events.
What's next: A new heavyweight champion will be crowned on Oct. 14.
- "I would really like another world record, but we will see what the scale says," Gienger says.
