Congratulations are in order for an Anoka horticulture teacher who, for the fourth year in a row, has won a national pumpkin weighing contest in Northern California.
Travis Gienger’s giant gourd weighed in at 2,471 pounds Monday, beating his closest competitor by about six pounds at the 51st World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California.
Yes, there’s actually a championship pumpkin weigh-off.
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. Last year Gienger set a world record with a pumpkin weighing 2,749 pounds.
“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.”
Geinger and his family took 35 hours to drive the pumpkin to the west coast for the event. 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.