{"id":494235,"date":"2026-10-13T03:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T03:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/494235\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T03:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T03:10:07","slug":"giant-pumpkins-battle-for-heavyweight-glory-and-the-world-record-in-california-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/494235\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant pumpkins battle for heavyweight glory and the world record in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HALF MOON BAY, Calif. \u2014 Giant pumpkin growers and their massive gourds will converge on Monday in Northern California for an annual pumpkin-weighing contest, competing for the top prize and a chance to challenge the world record set just last week in England.<\/p>\n<p>At least 30 growers of giant pumpkins have signed up for the 53rd World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, said event spokesman Ronan Fowler.<\/p>\n<p>Among the participants is four-time champion Travis Gienger, a horticulture teacher from Minnesota, whose winning streak ended last year after he was unable to participate because his pumpkin broke while it was still growing.<\/p>\n<p>Gienger, who this year had to deal with temperatures that dipped below freezing, grew a pumpkin whose circumference is so big it could be a world record contender, Fowler said.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"lazyload\"  alt=\"A woman looks toward a pumpkin that will be entered in the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, Monday, in Half Moon Bay, Calif.\"\/>A woman looks toward a pumpkin that will be entered in the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, Monday, in Half Moon Bay, Calif. (Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press)<\/p>\n<p>Fowler said last week that Gienger and his father planned to take turns driving 30 hours over the weekend to get the pumpkin the size of a small car to California.<\/p>\n<p>The new world record was set by Ian Paton, of Lymington, on England&#8217;s south coast, with a giant squash weighing 2,857 pounds. That&#8217;s heavier than two and a half concert <a href=\"https:\/\/www.steinway.com\/pianos\/steinway\/grand\/model-d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">grand pianos<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Paton grows his giant gourds in a greenhouse, while Gienger grows them in the pumpkin patch in his backyard in Anoka, a city on the banks of the Mississippi River north of Minneapolis, Fowler said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that Travis can weather the elements, like 30-degree weather, and still grow this massive pumpkin is pretty unbelievable,&#8221; the spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"lazyload\"  alt=\"People prepare a pumpkin for the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, Monday, in Half Moon Bay, Calif.\"\/>People prepare a pumpkin for the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, Monday, in Half Moon Bay, Calif. (Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press)<\/p>\n<p>Brandon Dawson, of Santa Rosa, California, who won the top prize last year with a behemoth of a pumpkin weighing 2,346 pounds, will also compete.<\/p>\n<p>The pumpkin champ this year will win $9 per pound of pumpkin and have their lumpy gourd showcased during a parade through Half Moon Bay this weekend. If they break the world record, they will take an extra prize of $30,000.<\/p>\n<p>Monday&#8217;s festivities, which will kick off the city&#8217;s fall celebration, will also include a special appearance by pumpkin carver Mike Valladao.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, these giants are grown for their size, not flavor, so there will be no giant pumpkin pies at the end of the festival.<\/p>\n<p>\n                                    The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.\n                                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HALF MOON BAY, Calif. \u2014 Giant pumpkin growers and their massive gourds will converge on Monday in Northern&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,6996,6995,6813,1286,972,100,4201,6997,127,4509,821,4591,19],"class_list":["post-494235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cars","tag-classifieds","tag-homes","tag-jobs","tag-local","tag-news","tag-radio","tag-salt-lake","tag-sports","tag-television","tag-traffic","tag-utah","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}