weirdness · Oct 23, 2026 · DAILY TRANSMISSION
A 3,156-Pound Pumpkin Just Body-Slammed the Record Book
Ron Wallace grew the first documented fruit above 3,000 pounds, then weighed it at a Rhode Island farm party with corn mazes, food trucks, and a very serious scale.
The scale had a big orange problem
Picture a pumpkin so huge it needs a harness, damp sheets, a comforter, shrink wrap, and a custom pallet to travel. Then picture that pumpkin arriving at a Rhode Island farm while a crowd waits for one number.
On October 10, Ron Wallace’s pumpkin landed on the scale at Frerichs Farm in Warren, Rhode Island. It weighed 3,156 pounds. Guinness World Records has verified it as the heaviest pumpkin ever recorded.
It is also the first documented fruit of any kind to break 3,000 pounds. That’s a sentence with the energy of a watermelon wearing combat boots.
Britain held the crown for one extremely brief week
The giant-pumpkin record had just moved to England. On October 3, Ian Paton’s pumpkin weighed 2,856 pounds and 12.8 ounces.
Then Wallace beat it by nearly 300 pounds, one week later. International sports can keep their transfer drama. The squash world has a very large, very orange version.
The record was verified by the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth at the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off. The Commonwealth is a group that tracks official giant-vegetable results and standards. Yes, there is serious paperwork behind this glorious nonsense.
This was no lucky porch pumpkin
Wallace’s fruit came from a greenhouse during his first season growing there. It passed quality-control tests before its official weigh-in, so this was not somebody sneaking a forklift under a gourd.
Its seed was labeled “2731 Stelts 2024.” That name is a pedigree: a family-history tag that traces the plant’s genetic line. Giant-pumpkin people follow those lines with the focus other folks bring to racehorses, fantasy leagues, or celebrity breakups.
Competitive growers use selective breeding, which means choosing parent plants for wanted traits. They can hand-pollinate flowers to control a cross, protect blooms from stray pollen, and carefully manage soil, water, drainage, and nutrients. Vines need serious room, too. This is amateur science in muddy boots.
The genius part happened at the hometown fair
Wallace had invitations to bigger competitions, including events with total prizes as high as $70,000. He chose the Warren weigh-off anyway, where his local prize was $3,500.
That farm event also had a giant-pumpkin drop, food trucks, a corn maze, children’s rides, and live music. A record that could have become a polished big-money spectacle instead popped off beside harvest-season chaos.
Wallace told the Associated Press that, after the result, “the place just exploded.” Correct response. If a 3,156-pound pumpkin appears near your corn maze, you are allowed to lose your mind a little.
A giant pumpkin is a group project with seeds
Wallace has crossed giant thresholds before. Guinness says he grew the first officially recorded pumpkin above 1,500 pounds in 2006, then the first above 2,000 pounds in 2012. This is his third time holding the heavyweight title.
But this hobby runs on shared knowledge. Growers compare parentage, conditions, and exact weights across countries. Wallace advises newcomers to join clubs, find mentors, and exchange seeds. After his pumpkin’s next act, he plans to distribute its seeds through growers’ clubs.
That next act may be even sillier. Wallace planned to attempt turning the record-holder into the world’s largest jack-o’-lantern. Then its genetics can scatter into new gardens, where somebody else will water a tiny seedling and think, very reasonably: let’s make this thing enormous.
SOURCES FROM THIS TRANSMISSION
Heaviest pumpkin | Guinness World Records ↗Pumpkinpalooza!: how the world’s biggest pumpkin record fell twice in one week | Guinness World Records ↗Southern New England Pumpkin Growers Weigh Off — Meet Me at the Fair ↗ ↗How prize-winning pumpkin growers produce the biggest gourds | WRUR ↗GPC Leaderboards - The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth ↗A Rhode Island Man Grew the First Pumpkin to Surpass 3,000 Pounds. The Gargantuan Gourd Is the Largest Fruit Ever ↗