Travis Gienger stood smiling on stage in an orange jacket, a large pumpkin laid flat on a scale in front of him.
Officials just gave the green light to weigh the giant gourd on Monday at the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-In in Half Moon Bay, Calif., considered the Super Bowl of pumpkin growing competitions.
“Wow!” said one of the announcers. “I’ve never seen anything like it. “It’s awesome. “
Ginger, from Anoka, Minn., stood up. Two growers had just broken the California record with a 2,497-pound pumpkin, and Ginger remembers hoping he could squeeze through and win. The announcer starts hyping up the crowd.
“Oh my God, here we come!” the announcer said.
Gienger’s pumpkin weighed 2,749 pounds and there was chaos. Ginger took off his hat, raised his fists in the air, and hugged everyone on stage. The crowd cheered.
Ginger, who named his pumpkin after basketball legend Michael Jordan, is celebrating like Jordan as he led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships.
The announcer pumped his fist in the air and shouted into the microphone, “Oh my God, Half Moon Bay is in the history books! That’s a world record!” as Queen’s song “We Are the Champions” began to play in the background.
“It’s so surreal,” Gienger, 43, told The Times on Tuesday.
The heaviest pumpkin currently listed by Guinness World Records is 2,702 pounds and belongs to an Italian grower. A spokesman for the organization did not respond to a request for comment about the Ginger Pumpkins.
Named “Michael Jordan” because he wears No. 23, Gienger attempts to grow the biggest pumpkin in 2023.
Ginger was introduced to growing pumpkins by his father, who also grew them as a hobby. Around age 14, Gienger grew a 447-pound pumpkin. “That’s how the whole thing started,” Ginger said.
He competed at the Half Moon Bay weigh-in for the first time in 2020 and set records in several events, including the largest pumpkin in North America last year. Although he was contacted by various weights last season, Ginger said he set his sights on Half Moon Bay not only because of his Super Bowl status, but also because his daughter Lily took her first steps there a year ago. .
In April, Gienger began growing this year’s pumpkins from Atlantic Giant seeds. Instead of using a climate-controlled greenhouse, he grows in his backyard, he said. He said the pumpkin started out as a “nice basketball hoop” but eventually “grew into this blob.” The late start to the season brings many challenges, including low nighttime temperatures, hail (If you look close enough, you can see the marks they leave on the pumpkin) and searing heat, he said.I want to know if every day was michael jordan’s last.
With plenty of water, fertilizer and feed, this beast keeps growing. In the early morning hours of Oct. 7, Ginger, with the help of friends and a compact track loader, put Michael Jordan (7 feet 5 inches wide by 6 feet 7 inches long) in the back of a trailer and headed west with his family. travel. A cardboard sign was attached to the trailer that read “California or Semifinals Round 3,” with the number 2 crossed out.
Early Monday morning, Ginger felt uncertain about Michael Jordan’s fate. The pumpkin was growing in an unusual way and he wondered if it could reach such a size because a small crack formed where the pumpkin was pollinated in July.
But officials checked Michael Jordan and gave him a thumbs up for the weigh-in. “It covers every inch of this thing,” the announcer said, referring to new scale In front of the stage.
“They gave the numbers and I was like, yes!” Ginger said. “I just wish I had $2,500.”
Gienger won $30,000, but the journey wasn’t over yet. Michael Jordan will remain on display in Half Moon Bay and ride on a float in the parade as part of the city’s famous two-day Art and Pumpkin Festival. Where it goes remains a moving target, Ginger said.
“There are a lot of places that need it,” he said.
But Gienger said the pumpkin’s final stop may be New York, where it will be carved into the world’s largest and heaviest jack-o-lantern, once again breaking the Guinness Book of Records.