Olympic-level pumpkin-growing yields 2 massive new NC State Fair records. Take a look

Two monstrous pumpkins weighing over 2,000 pounds each set N.C. State Fair records Tuesday as the heaviest gourds ever entered in the giant produce competition.

During the annual weigh-off, which alternates gargantuan pumpkins with colossal watermelons, a grower also presented the largest melon entered in any sanctioned contest in the world this year, though it was smaller than winners of previous years.

Farmers have always brought outsized agricultural products to the state fair, the way they used to bring misshapen sweet potatoes to newspaper offices to document their similarity to caricatures of Richard Nixon.

But the pumpkins and watermelons — technically both fruits — that thudded onto the industrial scales at the state fair went pro in 2014, after Asheville-area grower Susie Zuerner helped bring the state into the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, the official governing board that sets the rules on cartoonishly large edibles.

Out-of-state pumpkins for theatrical results

Before the state joined the GPC, as competitors call it, all entries at the N.C. State Fair had to be raised in our native soil, where it’s not that hard to grow a watermelon as big as a propane storage tank, but where pumpkins typically top out under 1,000 pounds before caving in or exploding.

While North Carolina ranked 13th in pumpkin production in 2020, those are normal, jack-o-lantern pumpkins, not ones the size of Cinderella’s carriage. The hot, humid weather that helps produce North Carolina’s coveted flue-cured tobacco is much harder on pumpkins, which fall victim to blight, mildew and mold when there is too much moisture and heat. Not to mention an army of pumpkin-eating insects.

North Carolina growers still place within the Top 10 biggest pumpkins at the fair, garnering a share of the cash prizes provided by sponsor Agri Supply, but first place — and often second and third — now usually go to competitors from out-of-state.

These are theatrical pumpkins. Theme-park pumpkins. Gasp-inducing, photo-op produce that, if you couldn’t just reach out and pat them, you might think they deflated onto the garden floor at night when somebody unplugged them.

Competitive (but friendly) fruit-growing

Competitive fruit-growing is like every other sport: it becomes an obsession, a quest, except that where others are trying to squeeze the most torque and horsepower from a race car, or get the most height and the best rotation in an uneven-bars routine, these contestants are going for girth and heft.

And though they all want to win, they are collegial, as if they’re all members of Team Winter Squash or the Watermelon Warriors. They share seeds and advice, such as how many gallons of water and how much calcium to feed a pumpkin in the height of the growing season, and how to build a hammock for a watermelon to prevent bottom rot.

They grieve each other’s heartbreaks, such as when Sam Jenkins lost a 600-pound pumpkin this year after nurturing it for months on his Elizabeth City farm.

“It just blew up,” Jenkins said Tuesday, shaking his head. “I went out one day and found it like that.”

Remarkably, Jenkins was able to bring another chunker to the fair, a respectable 489.7-pounder that earned him 10th place on the orange-painted leader board along with the good wishes of fellow farmers who knew the same could have happened to them.

They celebrate each other’s victories, too, such as breaking through the 2,000-pound threshold this year for the first — and second — time ever at the N.C. State Fair.

Together, the top two pumpkins weigh about the same as a base-model Toyota Highlander.

Individually, each weighs about 500 pounds more than the largest cow that will be entered in the livestock competition at the fair.

The NC State Fair winners for heaviest pumpkins & watermelons

▪ Robert Cyrus of Wayne County, W. Va., took the top prize in the pumpkin division with his 2,124-pound giant. Cyrus’ daughter said the family nicknamed the pumpkin “Ruby,” though forklift operator Donnie Johnson, who moves the malformed orbs around during the competition each year, said it looked more like Jabba the Hutt.

▪ Chris Rodebaugh of Lewisburg, W. Va., came in second with a pumpkin that weighed 2,025.7 pounds, beating his father, third-place winner Albert Rodebaugh, whose pumpkin weighed 1,736.5 pounds.

▪ In the watermelon division, Chris Kent, who holds the GPC world record from 10 years ago, grew this year’s 308.1-pound winner. Todd Dawson came in second with a 299.4-pound watermelon, and H.C. Williams was third with a 273.7-pound specimen.

The winners will be on display inside the Expo Center throughout the fair, which runs from Oct. 12-22.