OLDS, Alta.. – Anyone passing an out-of-the-way greenhouse on the Olds College campus may have wondered what was going on amidst the green leaves last week.
“Grab it, grab it!”
“Watch what you’re doing. You’re stuck in the door.”
“Don’t let go. What are you doing?”
Six red-faced, grasping, grunting men were moving Will Neily’s giant pumpkin on the first leg of its journey to the Smoky Lake Great White North pumpkin fair in Smoky Lake, Alta.
The annual event draws gargantuan pumpkins, squash and watermelon to the northern Alberta town for the annual international weigh off.
Read Also
Dry summer conditions can lead to poor water quality for livestock
Drought conditions in the Prairies has led to an decrease in water quality, and producers are being advised to closely monitor water quality for their animals.
On Oct. 2., giant vegetables tipped the scales in imperial weights to see who takes the honors for the most massive.
Neily placed seventh with a 450 pounder and his greenhouse partner Elorie Marks was eighth with a 402-lb. orange orb.
Top place went to Smoky Lake grower John Lobay with a 751-lb. pumpkin. He also took first place in the squash category with a 391-lb. entry.
None of them came close to this year’s world record, however. Grown in Pennsylvania, the biggest pumpkin in the world weighed 1,131 lb.
Boyhood dream
Neily, a greenhouse instructor at Olds College, has been a pumpkin fanatic since he was a boy in Atlantic Canada. The college gives him space to grow his pumpkins from May until the October weigh off.
He started growing pumpkins in 1984 when he lived in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. In 1987, he grew the world’s largest squash at 587 lb.
He joined Olds College in 1996 and started seriously growing pumpkins again.
“This is our first year of really trying to grow a pumpkin and we’ve given it our all,” said Neily.
There are some tricks involved in growing the godzilla of the pumpkin world.
Some growers manage to grow these giants outdoors, but with Alberta’s fickle weather, Neily grew his from four plants in a greenhouse.
Seed developer
The seeds came from Howard Dill, a Nova Scotia grower who developed and patented the Atlantic Giant pumpkins. Dill was the world champion pumpkin grower between 1979 and 1983.
The skin determines the weight. For these competitive pumpkins, the shell may be up to 23 centimetres thick. No split pumpkins are allowed because less-than-honest growers could add extra weight to the pumpkin and seal the split.
The plants are hand pollinated and fed a diet of synthetic fertilizer.
“It’s a secret concoction,” Marks said.
They encourage several pumpkins to grow from one plant because if all the plant’s energy is delivered to one pumpkin, it could grow too much and split.
Temperatures are regulated around the clock at a comfortable 21-26 C.
The most dramatic growth occurs once the plants start to set fruit and after the pumpkins reach about 50 lb. After that point, Neily said, the pumpkins pack on 30 lb. a day. The circumference grows by 12 cm daily.
The pumpkins are rotated regularly, which helps them maintain shape and prevents them from tearing away from their stems.
These are not traditional field pumpkins seen at Halloween.
They belong to the squash genus and are grown strictly for their size. The flesh is stringy and not suitable for eating, although some weigh-off competitions make pies just to see how much the plant yielded, Neily said.
