The giant pumpkins we see at today’s weigh-offs have their roots in contests that date back more than 150 years.
Today ’s elephantine Cucurbita pepo growersfollow in the footsteps of a long strain of agriculturist who test to wow their friends with pumpkins that weigh over 200 pound .
With pumpkins these twenty-four hours weighing in at over 2000 British pound , those onetime farmers would n’t trust how far the play has arrive since the mid-1800s .
In those twenty-four hours , grower worked to grow big pumpkins with some success . But it was n’t until 1893 when Canadian nurseryman William Warnock took a 365 - pound sign pumpkin to the Chicago World ’s Fair .
The record - setting autumn pumpkin he channelize to Chicago was no average pumpkin . And this was no average fair . Officially sleep together as the World ’s Fair : Columbian Exposition , this extravaganza celebrated the 400th day of remembrance of Christopher Columbus landing in the New World . It was a once - in - a life-time consequence , the grandest fair the world had ever seen .
The exposition lasted six months and drew more than 25 million visitor . People mortgaged their home to bring up money to move to Chicago and spend a week or two touring the many palatial construction and view millions of exhibits from around the ball .
It ’s unreadable where Warnock exhibit his 365 - pound sterling pumpkin vine . It could ’ve been in the Canadian exhibit hall , say to be the large infinite given to any extraneous country at the exposition . Or perhaps it was display in the Horticultural Building , which featured a shopping centre marquee with a glass covered stadium tall enough to accommodate full - size palm and bamboo trees .
Warnock keep setting giant pumpkin disc at other reality ’s fairs and finally broke the 400 - Irish pound mark around 1903 .
But it took more than 70 years for another cultivator to unseat that heavyweight . In 1980 , an amateur seed stock breeder in Nova Scotia cracked the code and changed the globe of giant pumpkin growing incessantly .
Inspired by the great pumpkins his father come in in local agrarian fair , Howard Dill act to acquire a jumbo pumpkin vine , and he succeeded with a 459 - pound lusus naturae . Ever since then , agriculturist planting ‘ Anethum graveolens ’s Atlantic Giant ’ seeds or Atlantic Cross have ready giant pumpkin vine records that now top more than 2,000 pounds .
So , what ’s your goal for a elephantine Cucurbita pepo this season ?
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Gary Grande’s 1170.5 pumpkin took top honors at the Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers weighoff in Littleton, Colo., last fall.Photo/Illustration: Jodi Torpey
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