\u201cWe were estimated to go over 700kg but, because we had a few cold stints this year, that trickled it down a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point, it was growing 12cm a day in circumference, he said.<\/p>\n
The fruit was 111 days old and it took another 75-80 days of plant growth.<\/p>\n
Gilchrist said growing the pumpkin required many soil tests, three to four hours a day of pest and fungus control, fertilisers, and phosphorus and potassium to accelerate growth.<\/p>\n
The biggest pests were powdery mildew, fungicides and aphids, he said.<\/p>\n
Pumpkins thrived in warm conditions, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey love the warmth; anything under 10C, they slow down in their growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Rangit\u012bkei was ideal for growing large pumpkins because of its warmth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a good region, anywhere north of here is pretty bloody good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This year, Gilchrist also grew a 16kg crown pumpkin.<\/p>\n
Gilchrist began growing giant pumpkins in 2022 after talking to another grower.<\/p>\n
That year, he grew one weighing 465kg, which was dropped 300m from a helicopter for a radio station challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a hobby we took up; it is a cool hobby but it is a lot of time – over 200 days of effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The pumpkin is testing the suspension of the ute it is displayed on at McVerry Crawford in Marton. Photo \/ Fin Ocheduszko Brown<\/p>\n
Gilchrist\u2019s 546kg effort this year is not his biggest. In 2024, he grew a 578kg pumpkin.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand record is held by Waikato farmer Tim Harris, who grew an 844.5kg pumpkin in 2021.<\/p>\n
A rewarding part of Gilchrist and his family\u2019s years of growing giant pumpkins is the friends made around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou meet a whole lot of people through it. It\u2019s a small community but everyone is out to help everyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gilchrist has friends who grow giant pumpkins in South Africa and Australia.<\/p>\n
He said the hobby was \u201cmassive\u201d in the United States because growers invested heavily in facilities, such as greenhouses with automatic heaters, doors and fans, which enabled sustainability. <\/p>\n
New Zealand growers were fading away from the hobby because it was hard to import seeds, Gilchrist said.<\/p>\n
In 2016, the Ministry for Primary Industries introduced regulations to make importing seeds more difficult to prevent disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they can get the seeds back into New Zealand, then there will be a lot more growers popping up,\u201d Gilchrist said.<\/p>\n
Gilchrist hoped to step away in future and have someone take over pumpkin-growing on his farm.<\/p>\n
The giant pumpkin is on display at McVerry Crawford on Wellington St, Marton, until April 21.<\/p>\n
Gilchrist said people were welcome to view it and take pictures with it before it was given to Marton School for students to cut the seeds from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t see it every day. I think the best thing we have taken out of it, as a family, is seeing kids get photos with it,\u201d Gilchrist said.<\/p>\n
Based on previous pumpkins, Gilchrist estimated about 95 seeds could come from this one.<\/p>\n
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe were estimated to go over 700kg but, because we had a few cold stints this year, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[198913,7224,3233,12026,1874,13313,128827,198914,9978,102883,194497,3180,111,43,139,69,90,52954,70013,2885,97,14443],"class_list":{"0":"post-382930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-546kg","9":"tag-dairy","10":"tag-farm","11":"tag-farmer","12":"tag-found","13":"tag-giant","14":"tag-gilchrist","15":"tag-gilchrists","16":"tag-grows","17":"tag-luke","18":"tag-marton","19":"tag-near","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-on","25":"tag-pumpkin","26":"tag-pumpkins","27":"tag-rangitkei","28":"tag-supermarket","29":"tag-wont"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}