Message Board - BigPumpkins.com

I've been wanting to post this for a while. Starting in 1976 this list shows the largest pumpkin grown that year regardless if it was a new World Record or not.

Year....Grower...............Location..........Weight
1893....William Warnoch........?...............365.0
1900....William Warnoch........?...............400.0
1903....William Warnoch..St. Louis Fair........403.0
1976....Bob Ford...........Pennsylvania........451.0
1977....Howard Dill.........Windsor, NS........287.0
1978....Edgar Van Wyck.......Roland, MB........382.0
1979....Howard Dill.........Windsor, NS........438.5
1980....Howard Dill.........Windsor, NS........459.0
1981....Howard Dill.........Windsor, NS........493.5
1982....Howard Dill.........Windsor, NS........445.0
1983....Owen Woodman........Falmouth, NS.......481.0
1984....Norm Gallagher.......Chelan, WA........612.0
1985....Michael Hodgson....River Philip, NS....531.0
1986....Robert Gancarz....Wrightstown, NJ......671.0
1987....Don Fleming........Morrisville, VT.....604.5

continued

1/2/2006 9:03:33 PM

1988....Keith Chappell...Upper Granville, NS...633.5
1989....Gordon Thomson....Hemmingford, PQ......755.0
1990....Ed Gancarz.........Wrightstown, NJ.....816.5
1991....Waterman/Ogunbuyi....Collins, NY.......780.5
1992....Joel Holland.........Puyallup, WA......827.0
1993....Donald Black.........Winthrop, NY......884.0
1994....Herman Bax..........Brockville, ON.....990.0
1995....Paula Zehr...........Lowville, NY......963.0
1996....Paula & Nathan Zehr..Lowville, NY......1061.0
1997....Chris Andersen........Moraga, CA.......977.0
1998....Gary Burke............Simcoe, ON.......1092.0
1999....Gerry Checkon........Spangler, PA......1131.0
2000....David Stelts.........Leetonia, OH......1140.0
2001....Brittany & Craig Weir.Salisbury, MA....1260.4
2001....Geneva Emmons.........Sammamish, WA....1262
2002....Charlie Houghton.....Goffstown, NH.....1337.6
2003....Steve Daletas..........Canby, OR.......1385
2004....Al Eaton..............Ontario, CA......1446
2005....Larry Checkon..........Altoona, PA.....1469

It is subject to correction. If I've made any errors or omissions in gathering data please let me know.

1/2/2006 9:03:41 PM

Ed & Bob Gancarz grew a whole lot of 300+ pounders through out the 1970's. Richard Wright, Helmet Llaemle & Harold Fulp are some other "hitters" of that era that somehow never made it into the record books outside of the town fairs they frequented.

The greatest mystery to me is the 73 year gap between 1903 & 1976. One must assume that between the Great Depression & 2 World Wars the gardening community was more concerned with mere existence than it was setting pumpkin records.

Why new records didn't come around in the post WW2 era of the 1950s is very interesting to me.

1/2/2006 9:13:03 PM

the gr8 pumpkin

Norton, MA

Thanks, there's the framework. Now what types of pumpkins were these? Who bred them? What was William Warnoch doing so well? Where was Ford in 77-78? 451 shouldn't have dropped to 287. AleX Noel.

1/2/2006 9:28:35 PM

Ed grew near his home in Coatesville, PA. He is still a commercial nurseryman. He was treated for a nasty ulcer in '76 & his doctor made him stay home. He got seeds from his friend Herb Walton (a commercial Rose grower from Churchville, PA) & grew them in a field near his house. He decided to treat the pumpkins with the same sort of Insect & disease control program he was used to using in his greenhouse. His fertility program was custom built for him by the founder of Peter's Professional fertilizers. He told me thet Pateres had him us 20-10-10 soluble.

He met with Howard Dill a couple times & grew his own seeds for 2 more years but never made the big time again.

The 451 actually weighed 477 lbs when it first hit a scale. But the weight wasn't official until he got it on the certified scales at Cornell 3 weeks later.

1/2/2006 9:55:48 PM

Sav

Leamington, Ont.

Tremor, here's something I found in an article on the web:

competitive growing didn't attain international stature until 1900, when William Warnock, of Goderich, Ontario, sent a 400-pound specimen to the Paris World's Fair. In 1903 he bettered his record by three pounds. That record held until 1976, when a Pennsylvania man exhibited a 451-pounder at the U.S. Pumpkin Contest in Churchville, Pennsylvania.

From then on, the numbers steadily climbed. Starting in the late seventies

1/2/2006 9:58:48 PM

HotPumpkin (Ben)

Phoenix, AZ

Steve,

Check your notes on 1984. Pretty sure it was Manson, WA. I lived in Chelan(a town of 3K) at that time and I remember the hubub was right up the lake at the next town...Manson.

Ben

1/2/2006 9:59:16 PM

Ben,

I did a White Pages search for Norm Gallagher in Chelan. Their program refered me to Manson but that guys first name was Neal. What do you want to bet he lived in Manson but Chelan was the location of the fair it was weighed at. Ray Waterman's website also lists the 612 in Chelan. Weird. Is there an Ag Fair in Chelan?

1/2/2006 10:09:56 PM

Andy W

Western NY

So it looks like next year will [likely] be the 10th consecutive world record year. Quite the progress, especially considering it has a good chance to also be the first 1500+. A real tribute to both the multitude of growers giving more seeds their potential, and also the increase in the power behind those genetics.

1/2/2006 10:37:17 PM

LIpumpkin

Long Island,New York

We need someone to crack into the Circleville pumpkin records for those years...the oldest running pumpkin show/contest I'm told....Im sure they have the records...anyone in Circleville? I believe an old-time AG grower runs the show...

1/2/2006 10:41:34 PM

I've been thinking the same thing Glenn. I was starting to gather OH contacts when spring sprung on me last year. I guess it's time to start researching again huh?

The girl who runs what is now the Cornell Nature Center's archives (Cornell still hosts a pumpkin *show* but the drive is changed) faxed me all of the records that she had. What was somewhat disappointing was the fact that the growers stopped bringing really big fruit to Cornell. The prize structure didn't favor the grower so the weights there dropped sharply after the 513 Fulp 1977*.

I think Circleville would yield more impressive fruit weights. I doubt the genetics questions picture would get much clearer.

Weigh-off locations back then never recorded parentage. Indeed most don't now unless it is a GPC site & even this is a new development. So without the old timers to talk to, the weight records are pretty meaningless. There was no AGGC in the '60s & '70s. All we have are sketchy memories. Ed Ford didn't know where his friend Herb got his seeds. Just said that all the PA guys were growing the same line. Howard Fulp also granted me an interview but he developed his own line using Bannana Squash & other weird stuff he'd buy as he found it at fairs & road side stands.

That's how it was back then. Ed Gancarz did the same thing. He told me his uncle showed up one day with a Giant in the back of his pickup. Told Ed to get it out & grow it. From then on he was bitten. If he heard of or saw a big fruit he liked somewhere he'd try to buy it. The seeds would go into a corner hill or two. The entry of the new genetics (by bees) would show their influence in future seasons.

Fulp was at least hand pollinating. However I don't think he was excluding all of the bees, etc. Back then a lot of growers were satisfied to get their chosen pollen in first. If more pollen arrived later I doubt they realized the impact that would have on the future seeds.

1/2/2006 11:35:38 PM

Grandpa's patch

White Bear Lake, Minnesota

How did these pumpkins become known as "Dill's Atlantic Giants"? Did the genitics change that much from the originals?

1/3/2006 1:04:52 AM

I just clipped this off the www. It is a French to English translation so it's a little rough:

The first to produce a giant pumpkin was William Warnock de Goderich in Ontario. It presented at the world Fair of Paris a pumpkin of 400 pounds. That occurred in.... 1900! It deserved a special medal bronzes some and a diploma of the French government. Its preceding record was 365 pounds in 1893. In 1903, it made oscillate the balance with 403 pounds with the world Fair of St-Louis. Renny Seed Company buys this pumpkin to him then sells the seeds 25¢ each one through Canada and the United States under the variety "Goderich Giant".

It is only in 1976 that a new record is established by Bob Ford in Pensylvanie with 451 pounds.

From 1973 to 1979, Howard Dill of News-Scotland carries out crossings of the variety "Goderich Giant" and variety "Genuine Mammoth". The latter has been cultivated by his/her father for thirty years who succeeds in producing pumpkins of 200 pounds. In 1980, it places the world record at 459 pounds with a seed resulting from its experiments. It names this variety "Dill Atlantic Giant" which is today the only variety used for the giant pumpkin contests.

continued

1/3/2006 7:22:52 AM

To date, there exists in North America, two great associations of potironniers, that is to say the G.P.C. (Great Pumpkin the Commonwealth) and the W.P.C. (World Pumpkin Confederation). On the whole these organizations represent forty sites of official weighing. "Weightoff Day" generally takes place first Saturday of October and this for all the sites of weighing.

In Gentilly, a giant pumpkin contest was born in 1991 to be baptized "Potirothon" in 1992 by our friend Rene Héon. The origin of this name comes from the word "pumpkin", the pumpkin being thus named in France. Gentilly is located at Canada, province of Quebec, in edge of the St-Laurent river halfway between the towns of Montreal and Quebec.

http://mrcbecancour.qc.ca/potirothon/Fichiers%20Historique/Historique%20de%20la%20citrouille%20geante.htm

1/3/2006 7:22:58 AM

Dave McCallum

Hanover,Ontario,Canada

Yes, Steve, the first recognized Giant Pumpkin was that of William Warnock of Goderich, Ontario, Canada and not far south of Port Elgin. We also have an news article credited to William Warnock detailing how to grow these giants. The article lays out the process of preparing the soil naturally and I find it makes me smile to think that we are finally returning to Bill Warnocks method of growing.

1/3/2006 7:49:25 AM

I have that Pumpkinfest newletter with the William Warnock growing tips right here (Pumpkinfest Growers Vine December 2002). In his article "How to Grow Big Squashes" Warnock explains that he did a lot of things that we do now including vine training. He even debunks the "Milk" theory! LOL A man way ahead of his time.

1/3/2006 9:48:04 AM

the gr8 pumpkin

Norton, MA

After many searches I've found that Goderich Giant is virtually, if not entirely, extinct, genuine mammoth is gone but not entirely (possibly attainable), and mammoth tours gives me nothing except that it existed once. No background on any. Anything else even on the characteristics of the oldies? I've noticed that between the 70's/80's and now pumpkins have gotten far rounder, they were long pointed, kayak shaped things then. Now they are mostly, relatively, barrel shaped. AleX Noel.

1/3/2006 11:18:20 AM

I have piles of black & white pictures from the '80s & onward that were given to me by a fellow Pumpkin History nut. I also have a scanned image of the 451 Ford that Ed sent me with the seeds. Back issues of Guinness World Records often have the current year starting about 1976.

Prior to the introduction of the Dill's AG most of these fruit varied somewhat in shape & color. Howard brought us the better looking orange color.

If the "Mammoth Giant" or "Goderich Giant" or "Genuine Giant" or "Mammoth Tours" or "Hungarian Giant" ever were genetically refined (unlikely unless by mistake via isolated growing - Laemmle), then this is likely what Gancarz, Ford & Wright were growing in the '60's & '70s.

It is easy for us today to call the Gancarz era pumpkins "Gancarz genetics". Maybe this is OK. And these "Gancarz" era seeds are probably as close as we'll ever get to the genetics of the pre-Dill era.

Not all of the Gancarz seeds grew off color fruit. The 671 Gancarz '86 (390 Gancarz '94 x self) was a nice blocky orange fruit. However it's progeny were all squash & even found their way right into the 821 Stellpflug* 90.

Keep looking on those dusty shed windowsills at Estate sales. One mans garbage is another mans dream. Imagine the treasures lost to the unobservant estate liquidators?

One look at the 567.5 Mombert family tree will explain my interest in finding the pure older gentics.

1/3/2006 12:49:17 PM

Alan N

New York

Norm Gallagher was from Chelan WA when he grew his 612 in 1984. I have his old address and have met him. The 612 was entered at the Half Moon Bay weigh-off, which we know is still very much alive today. That same weigh-off in '84 also had Art Quint weigh a 560 pounder...at that time 500 had not been reached. In fact Art thought he was the clear winner that day and new record holder. That is until Norm unloaded his 612 and shocked everyone. Art's 560 ended up #4 in the World as 5 pumpkins broke the 500 barrier in '84. 1984 was the birth of the modern day Giant. From that year on, records just continue to be broken.

1/3/2006 10:15:36 PM

HotPumpkin (Ben)

Phoenix, AZ

Alan,

Nice little story there. Never met Norm Gallagher but then I was in high school at the time and had no interest in growing pumpkins (we all remember what was really on our minds at the time). My Wife and I still own land up there and someday I will try my hand at growing a biggie up there instead of this oven that people call Phoenix.

However, I do have to say it is pretty cool to be looking to plant in just a few weeks!

Thanks Steve for the valuable information that really got this thread going.

Ben

1/3/2006 11:07:15 PM

Alan do we have any idea what seeds Art Quint & Norm Gallagher were growing? AGGC has no data on either of these.

1/3/2006 11:13:55 PM

Southeast Wisconsin

Interesting reading. As a young boy growing up on my fathers farm, we grew yearly about 10 acres of pumpkins and winter squash. I was always looking through the seed catalogs as to what pumpkins would grow the biggest. Back then, if someone grew something big it usually meant it would get put into the Ripley' Believe It or Not column which ran weekly in most newspapers. I remember vididly that Ripley told his readers about a farmer in Russia that had grown a pumpkin over 100 lbs. Of course this was during the cold war and it would have been hard to validate this. Farmers have always tried to grow vegetables bigger than their neighbors. The myth about feeding your pumpkins milk to make them bigger, is talked about in the Little House on the Prarie books by Lara Ingalls Wilder. Look in vintage seed catalogs and you will find that companies like Burpee, were offering cash rewards for biggest pumpkins, biggest tomatoes, most lbs of potatoes from one plant ect.

1/3/2006 11:40:13 PM

Southeast Wisconsin

I believe it was in Burpee's 1883 catalog that it was noted that someone in Nova Scotia had grown a 293 lb. King of Mammoth or Mammoth Chile squash. My father raised about a 1/2 acre of these one year and they tasted much like a banana squash. They probably averaged 50 to 75 lbs. One year my father grew 5 acres of Connecticut Field jack-o-lantern pumpkins and we had several that grew to over 70 lbs. I remember distincly that in order for a fruit to be called a pumpkin it had to be round, orange, with ribs and the handle (stem) had to be square. Anything outside of that was considered to be a squash. If someone took a c. maxima to the fair and entered it under pumpkin it would have been disqualified. In the mind of the most people, pumpkins were suppose to look like the picture on the can of Libby's pumpkin pie mix. Maybe this is the reason that there was a void in recording yearly pumpkin winners. People were looking for pepo cultivars and not maxima. I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that when Alantic Giant came out it was listed as a squash with most seed companys in their catalogs and not as a pumpkin. I remember an old Greek produce buyer that my father dealt with, who brokered most of the halloween pumpkins that were sold throughout the Utah,Idaho, Wyoming area. He would occassionally get a grower that would try to sell him maxima's as pumpkins. He would really get mad and called them cow pumpkins.

1/3/2006 11:41:36 PM

Southeast Wisconsin

As far as the development of the AG, its bloodline runs deep with Mammoth Chile, Hungarian Mammoth and other maxima's. Dill made some great selections, kept in-line breeding going and made some good crosses. The rest is history. No time in history I would dare say, has so many diverse group of people devoted so much time and effort to produce a fruit that grows larger and larger all the time. I suppose the interest is that there is nothing on the face of the earth that will grow as quickly and as big as a AG. And there really doesn't appear to be a limit to this. In 1900 William Warnock found the fascination of growing a big squash, used some good sound growing fundamentals to grow his plants. All in all how many people at the turn of the century were really trying to grow a giant pumpkin? Now we have thousands of growers world wide continuing the pursuit to grow the biggest squash ah' I mean pumpkin.

Russ
Burlington, WI

1/3/2006 11:42:06 PM

Grandpa's patch

White Bear Lake, Minnesota

Good reading Stokey.

1/4/2006 1:55:45 AM

Alan N

New York

Yes, interesting reading.

Steve- Gallagher's 612 was grown from a Dill seed that Howard sent him. If I'm not mistaken, the seed was taken from the actual pumpkin that was pictured on his seed packets. It's the one that Howard's 5 year old Neice is pictured standing next to. It's shown from the blossom end and she is about the same height as the pumpkin. Not sure on it's weight or year grown.
Norm Gallagher was one of the first hardcore growers. In '84 he enclosed the plant in a greenhouse with heaters,
pruned the plant very carefully, and even heated his water before applying. He really took the next step in what we see today.

1/4/2006 3:40:08 AM

Ray

Hamburg, NY

Alan, Good reporting. You were considered one of the young kid's (15 or 16 yrs. old if I remember correctly) who broke through with a big one proving that this was a sport/hobby available to all ages! Norm & Ruth Gallagher (seniors of retirement age) were great promoters for giant pumpkin growing and the WPC was happy to give them a $10,000.00 USD award for breaking the 500 lb barrier. I had to fight a little to get the funds to them but that was worth it also. I still have ideas on how to develop a proper award for the annual world's largest pumpkin. Just one comment on your report. I believe Howard's seeds came form an earlier pumpkin than the one you describe with his neice, as I had the packets made for him a couple of years later. Ray Waterman

1/4/2006 8:00:58 AM

Ray

Hamburg, NY

re:I did a White Pages search for Norm Gallagher in Chelan. Their program refered me to Manson but that guys first name was Neal. What do you want to bet he lived in Manson but Chelan was the location of the fair it was weighed at. Ray Waterman's website also lists the 612 in Chelan. Weird. Is there an Ag Fair in Chelan?

Steve, We most always listed the growers hometown, giving them the credit deserved, no matter where they weighed off. This went a different direction with the GPC later on.
Norm Gallagher was older and in poor health even when he was growing twenty years ago. Later the WPC had several weigh-off sites in WA to include Manson. Ray

1/4/2006 12:46:18 PM

Hmmmm.....

Very intuitive post Russ. I hadn't considered the soft-stem/squash issue but it makes a lot of sense. Had the early Giants been bred for sweetness as well as size then Libby's & the other canners might have been satisfied to purchase Cucurbita maxima (Squash).

I've been thinking that the post war world was more concerned with eating & that it took some time for larger disposable incomes to coincide with organic chemistry & an increase in leisure time. But there seemed like more was needed. I think you just found the final missing ingredient.

Thanks you Ray & Alan. One day we need to sit down & get ALL of this historical data gathered together. You 2 guys are pretty darn close to Niagara. Do I need to pick you both up to get you there? Maybe meet at a diner somewhere?

1/4/2006 1:45:51 PM

Marv.

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

There is room for a book on the overall history of pumpkins for those interested in history. Maybe you guys might want to invite Langevin to the meeting as well?

1/4/2006 3:01:00 PM

AXC

Cornwall UK.(50N 5W)300ft.

There is a passage from "The gardeners assistant 1857" in Thomas Etty's current catalogue which mentions a 245lb fruit of the Mammoth variety being grown in Devonshire believed to be the worlds largest at the time.

http://www.thomasetty.co.uk/vegetables/seeds_curcubita.pdf

Its at the bottom left corner.

1/4/2006 3:44:59 PM

I just emailed Thomas Etty to see if this can be confirmed. That would be very cool. I should have asked if Etty can ship to the US.

1/4/2006 5:42:13 PM

Don snores.

1/4/2006 5:49:51 PM