Pumpkin Nook has compiled a wealth of pumpkin facts and fun, including lesson plans for teachers. They are to credit for the information and pictures here.
In the year 1900 the first world record for the largest pumpkin was set at the Paris World Fair by a man named William Warnock. Willy had managed to grow a whopping 400 pound pumpkin! Since then, people from around the world have been growing larger and larger pumpkins each year! In the year 2000 Dave Stelts grabbed the world record with a pumpkin weighing in at 1140 pounds! The current world record was set this year by a German man named Mathias Willemijns (pictured above). Mathias's gargantuan pumpkin weighed in at 2624 pounds! That's more than six times the size of William Warnocks, and more than double Dave Stelt's. If this trend continues in the year 2050 someone will have grown a pumpkin that weighs in at over 11,000 pounds, that's the size of an elephant! Can you imagine!?!
William Warnock, a founding father of giant pumpkin cultivation.