Good gourd! Minnesota teacher clinches pumpkin weigh-off with 2,471-lb winner

A Minnesota horticulture teacher remained the reigning champion on Monday of an annual pumpkin-weighing contest in northern California, where his massive gourds have won the top prize four years in a row.

Travis Gienger, of Anoka, Minnesota, beat his closest competitor by 6lbs (2.7kgs) to clinch the victory at the 51st World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.

His winning gourd came in at 2,471lbs (1,121kgs), falling short of the world record he set last year with a pumpkin weighing 2,749lbs (1,247kgs).

Gienger, 44, said that as he has done in the past, he focused on having healthy soil and well-fed plants, but that a cold fall with record-breaking rain likely impacted his pumpkin’s growth.

“We had really, really tough weather and somehow, some way, I kept on working,” Gienger said. “I had to work for this one, and we got it done at the end, but it wasn’t by much.”

Gienger and his family drove his gargantuan gourd for 35 hours to California.

He said the giant pumpkin’s next stop will be in southern California, where a team of professional carvers will do a 3D carve on it at a Halloween event.

Gienger’s pumpkin from last year – dubbed Michael Jordan “because it’s the year [20]23 … and he’s the greatest basketball player of all time”, Gienger said – weighed in at 2,749lbs breaking a previous record set in 2021 by Stefano Cutrupi of Italy, by 47lbs.

Michael Jordan grew into an enormous, lumpy, orange pumpkin, equivalent to about 2,110 basketballs, or about 275 average jack-o’-lantern gourds. For comparison, Michael Jordan, the basketball player, weighed 216lbs during his NBA career.

Gienger’s 2024 winning gargantuan gourd will be the star attraction at this weekend’s Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival, with an appearance in the noontime parade.

Maanvi Singh contributed to this report