California contest dubs 893kg pumpkin the plumpest

The winning entry was no small feat. Steve Daletas brought the latter to a weigh-in competition in California on Monday.

Steve Daletas of Pleasant Hill, Oregon, took home $11,814 – about $6 per pound – after his lumpy, 1,969-pound pumpkin won the contest.

Eleven pumpkins at the contest exceeded 1,000-pounds.

Brad Porter, left, and Eric Carlson measure a giant pumpkin on Monday.

Miller says he gets emotional when he cuts the pumpkin from its stock. “I’ve never grown an official 1,900-pound pumpkin before”.

Second place went to Ron and Karen Root of Citrus Heights, California, for their 1,806-pound entry.

With California in its fourth year of drought, a few said the dry soil deflated their pumpkin-growing dreams. Local farmers reported battling a more challenging growing environment as they tried to plump up their pumpkins.

Daletas, 55, watched a forklift lower his pale, oblong squash onto the scale with his wife, Susie, and his parents, Mitch and Jeannette, all of whom helped tend his pumpkin patch this summer.

Growers from Oregon and Washington dominated the Half Moon Bay competition from 2000 to 2008.

Giant pumpkins sit on pick up trucks beds waiting to be weighed. “In September, I had one that was over 1,500 pounds that developed a little tiny crack that would make it illegal to enter”, he said.

Last year, grower John Hawkley set a North American record with a 2,058-pounder.

The search for a heavyweight champ to break the world record kicks-off the Art & Pumpkin Festival October 17-18.

Organizers of the world championship have offered a $30,000 prize to anyone who could beat the world record set by Swiss farmer Beni Meier.

If El Niño doesn’t deliver big rains this winter, both Glasier and Tim Mathison, the world’s top grower in 2013, said they won’t grow giant pumpkins at all next year.