VIDEO: Teacher Grows 2,560-Pound Pumpkin, Sets Record at Championship

A horticulture teacher from Anoka, Minnesota, grew a giant pumpkin for a contest in California and set a U.S. record.

Travis Gienger achieved that record thanks to his 2,560-pound pumpkin at the 49th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco, USA Today reported Tuesday.

A photo showed Gienger with his arms raised in victory as he stood onstage behind the massive gourd:

“Minnesota has a great midyear, but our spring in our parts is really, really tough. So to do it in Minnesota, it just shouldn’t happen,” Gienger said of the growing process. “It’s like winning the Tour de France on a big wheel. You know, you can only hope, but it worked.”

He also won the same contest in 2020, but the record for the heaviest pumpkin in the world was set by an Italian man who grew a 2,702-pound squash last year.

Gienger, whose home is the Halloween capitol of the world, told a Safeway representative he had been growing pumpkins for over 20 years.

“My Dad kinda always grew some small ones and then my family did a lot of gardening back in the day I would say, and just kinda got into it,” he said:

When asked how long it took to grow a pumpkin of such massive proportions, Gienger said his was approximately 120 days old, and it was named Maverick.

“We came up with the name Maverick and the reason being is on day five I dropped a five gallon bucket of dirt on it and just destroyed it. And it came back and healed over and scarred over and you can see the scars on it. Indefatigable would be the word,” he noted.

Gienger took home over $20,000 thanks to his prize-winning pumpkin, according to USA Today.

It took Gienger 35 hours to drive from Minnesota to California with the pumpkin strapped down in a trailer. “It’s an intense drive,” he said.

In August, a Nebraska man named Duane Hansen set out to break a world record by floating a river inside a pumpkin that weighed 846 pounds, and his efforts paid off.

“That was my biggest feat was to grow a pumpkin big enough to do this. I’ve never been in a pumpkin going down the river. I can’t say it’s easy,” he explained.