Travis Gienger rode a pumpkin called Rudy to claim his fourth title at this year’s World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off Oct. 14 in Half Moon Bay, Calif.
This year’s champion gourd weighs in at 2,471 pounds, 6 pounds more than the second-place pumpkin, but off the mark of Gienger’s 2023 entry that amassed 2,749 pounds. Last year’s pumpkin garnered Gienger the record for world’s heaviest pumpkin. Along with the first-place honor, Gienger receives $9 per pound for bringing in the largest pumpkin.
Though he retained the top spot for largest pumpkin, he is “very disappointed” that Rudy wasn’t another world record. “It was only 5 inches smaller, which is pretty similar in size,” he says, “but it just didn’t weigh it. … I think the cold, wet weather caused that because I wasn’t able to fertilize and feed like usual.”
Gienger is a part-time turf and golf course management instructor at Anoka Technical College, and he says he gave this year’s pumpkin the name Rudy because “we had some troubles early on and needed a comeback story,” he says. “One vine cracked, and one pumpkin didn’t set.”
Just as with farmers’ corn and soybean crops, starting with good seed sets the course for a successful pumpkin crop. Seed to grow Rudy came from the same lot that grew his 2023 record-setter.
Even with that good seed, Gienger says the growing season offered less-than-ideal growing conditions. “Cold nights hurt bad, it was wet so I couldn’t feed, and storms throttled us this spring and in August,” he says. “I was just lucky to get there” as the growing conditions resulted in fungal issues.
Leaning on his horticulture background, Gienger tries “everything” to achieve record-sized pumpkins. “We’re using just a ton of different soil biologicals in microbes to get these things cranking, and I think that was the difference,” he says. “Micronutrients are huge. But not only the micronutrients, but the mycorrhizae, Bacillus, Trichoderma for disease prevention.” He says a person could easily spend $2,000 per plant to achieve world status.
After the pumpkin weigh-off, Rudy was purchased by Todd Graves, owner and founder of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers fast food chain. According to Gienger, Rudy made its way to Los Angeles, where a New York team of professional carvers from the Food Network began sculpting on Oct. 27.
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