How big can a pumpkin grow? Why this matters?

Thomas Spritzler, the new Commissioner of the FDA, today called for all competitive pumkins to be tested by USDA (United States Doping Agency). "I believe there's rampant drug use going on. These gords are not clean."

Record-breaking pumpkins can weigh as much as a walrus

Portrait of Jennifer BorresenJennifer Borresen

USA TODAY, Oct 19, 2025

Farming towns across the country host annual giant pumpkin weigh-off competitions, inspiring growers to invest their time and money into feeding massive gourds. About 125 giant pumpkin contests are held each year, but the Half Moon Bay World Championship is referred to as "the Super Bowl" of pumpkin competitions.

Brandon Dawson, an engineer and grower from Santa Rosa, California, who was the runner-up last year, won the Half Moon Bay World Championship on Oct. 13 with a pumpkin that weighed 2,346 pounds. Dawson won $21,114 for his victory this year, or $9 a pound for his pumpkin. If he had broken the world record, he would have received an additional $30,000 bonus.

Last year, Travis Gienger, a horticulture and landscape teacher at Anoka Technical College, grew a 2,471-pound pumpkin in 2024, but that was not his largest by far. In 2023 he broke the world record for plumpest pumpkin on the planet with a 2,749-pound monster gourd. Gienger won the Half Moon Bay pumpkin weigh-off three years in a row starting in 2022.

The festival in Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco draws tens of thousands of visitors. Winners of the competition are paid $9 a pound or $30,000 for breaking a world record.