Kansas State Fair photo
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — A pumpkin weighing in at 1,034 pounds has squashed the Kansas State Fair record.
The Wichita Eagle reports that Garden City’s Donovan Mader grew the monster in his abandoned horse pen. The pumpkin was 57.8 pounds heavier than the one that set the state record in 2007.
Long lines of gawkers have been viewing the pumpkin at the Kansas State Fair’s Pride of Kansas building. It’s Mader’s first ever entry in the giant pumpkin division, which has been previously dominated by pumpkin growing experts from Wichita and Liberal.
Mader went online looking for seeds. The classic truck restorer bought four or five at $25 each.
He says he got some help from an unusually wet summer in western Kansas. But Mader stresses there’s “a lot of luck involved.”