Rhode Island Grower Smashes World Record With 3,156-Pound Pumpkin
A Rhode Island farmer has smashed the world record for the heaviest pumpkin. At the annual Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Weigh-Off on Saturday, October 10, hosted by Frerichs Farm in Warren, R.I., Ron Wallace of Greene, Rhode Island, weighed in a pumpkin at 3,156 pounds — surpassing the previous world record for heaviest pumpkin by nearly 300 pounds, according to John Russo, the competition’s official scale weigher. The event ran from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and drew crowds with the weigh-off, food trucks, and live entertainment. Wallace is no stranger to giant-pumpkin glory. In 2012, he grew the world’s first one-ton pumpkin — a 2,009-pound behemoth that shattered the record at the Topsfield Fair, a feat fair officials compared to breaking the four-minute mile. His father, Richard Wallace, set a North American record with a 2,261.5-pound pumpkin at the Frerichs Farm weigh-off in the fall of 2024, topping the 2,230-pound pumpkin Ron had grown the year before. The Frerichs Farm weigh-off has been running since 2000 and is one of the premier stops on the competitive giant-pumpkin circuit. Growing a pumpkin that size is a science as much as a sport: top growers trace their pumpkins’ seed lineage back generations, tie blossoms closed and hand-pollinate to control parentage, and coax vines that can grow a foot or more a day. In peak season, a giant pumpkin can put on 45 pounds a day, most of it water — and the best results each year tend to follow the weather.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Nick Ares 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）（南瓜称重赛资料图）
