Guinness alert: This is the world’s heaviest gourd vegetable

Can you guess the size of the world’s heaviest gourd? A butternut squash, a type of pumpkin, has been declared the world’s heaviest with a weight of 104.5 pounds (47.4 kg), according to the Guinness World Records website.
A USA-based farmer Derek Ruthruff has been credited with the record for growing the world’s heaviest gourd vegetable which is equal to about eight average-sized pumpkins, noted the website.

Botanically known as Cucurbita Moschata, the butternut squash is a typically peanut-shaped fruit which is enjoyed as a vegetable, usually ranging in size from about 3 to 5 pounds (1.3 to 2.2 kg).
Butternut squash is a typically peanut-shaped fruit which is enjoyed as a vegetable (Source: GuinnessWorldRecords.com)
Grown using a seed from the former record-breaking butternut weighing 55.5 pounds (25.1 kg), which was cultivated Chropher Brown in 2020, the gigantic squash was planted on April 15, 2022 and pollinated just over three months later, on July 21, 2022.
Ruthruff, who has been growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins for four years, wanted to set the record as an example to his children that if you set your heart on something and put in the effort, anything is possible, according to the records site.
Although he isn’t new to growing super-sized vegetables and has even grown a pumpkin weighing 1,778.5 pounds (806.7 kg), it was after watching Chropher initially grow a gargantuan gourd that Ruthruff decided to attempt the record himself, the website mentioned.
“I have always loved butternut squash,” Ruthruff told the records site while sharing that his wife Erin, who is a chef “has never made a squash dish I didn’t like”.
“Winter squash is one of my favourite foods, especially when it’s oven roasted with onions, carrots, and garlic,” he mentioned in the same interview.
What all went into growing the vegetable?
According to Ruthruff, plant maintenance from weeding to vine training is time-consuming and requires daily inputs. “Missing a few days of vine maintenance during peak growth will leave you with a tangled mess of vines,” he told GuinnessWorldRecords.com.

“The squash is still intact and riding around with me in my truck. The plan is to find a qualified chef with a large enough oven to bake the monster,” he said while hoping to set “another record for the largest stuffed squash, or the most people fed with a single squash while we’re at it”.
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