The cover story of USA Today Weekend Edition reports that as Halloween approaches, agricultural towns across the United States hold annual giant pumpkin weight competitions, encouraging growers to invest time and money in cultivating giant pumpkins.
Approximately 125 giant pumpkin contests are held each year, but the Half Moon Bay World Championship in California is known as the "Super Bowl" of pumpkin contests. Brandon Dawson, an engineer and grower from Santa Rosa, California, who came in second last year, won the Half Moon Bay weighing competition on October 13 with a pumpkin weighing 2,346 pounds. Dawson earned $21,114 for his victory this year, which is $9 per pound. If he breaks the world record, he will also receive a $30,000 bonus.
Last year, Travis Kinger, a horticulture and landscape teacher at Anoka Technical College, grew a pumpkin weighing 2,471 pounds in 2024, but this was far from the largest pumpkin he has ever grown. In 2023, he broke the world record for the fattest pumpkin with a giant gourd weighing 2,749 pounds. Kinger has won the Half Moon Bay pumpkin weighing contest for three consecutive years.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1846870401719308/
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