TOPSFIELD, Mass. — Woody Lancaster had sworn this would be his final season growing giant pumpkins. He went out on top. The 80-year-old backyard grower's entry tipped the scale at 2,598 pounds Friday night at the 42nd All New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off, breaking the Topsfield Fair record and drawing a roar from the crowd packed into the fair's arena.
The gourd beat the mark of 2,507 pounds set last year by Alex Noel of Abington, Connecticut, one of 21 pumpkins entered in this year's contest, according to the WBUR preview of the weigh-off. Fairgrounds officials had predicted beforehand that the field was strong enough to challenge both the fair and world records.
A career capped
Lancaster, a longtime regional representative for the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, has grown giant pumpkins in his Topsfield backyard for decades and took home more than ten thousand dollars in prize money for the win, according to Boston.com's account of the weigh-off. He said he decided to push his plants harder than usual this year, knowing it would be his last run at the title.
I can take a seed the size of your thumbnail and turn it into a 2,500 pound pumpkin.
Woody Lancaster, grower
The pumpkin still falls short of the world record of 2,819 pounds, set last year by English brothers Ian and Stuart Paton, but it lands Lancaster among the heaviest entries ever weighed in New England. A second Topsfield-grown pumpkin, tended by Henry Swenson on Lancaster's own land, came in at 1,246 pounds after battling disease earlier in the season.
Lancaster said retiring from competition does not mean giving up the hobby entirely, just the stress of chasing a scale. For now, New England's giant-pumpkin circuit has a new benchmark, and a grower who intends to watch next year's weigh-off from the stands.
The timing added to the spectacle: the same weekend, growers in British Columbia held their own weigh-off, where the giant-pumpkin category came down to a one-pound margin between the top two entries. Topsfield's own event, now in its 42nd year, draws competitors from across the Northeast each fall who spend months nursing single vines in hopes of a crane-assisted trip to the scale. Lancaster's 2,598-pound winner needed several helpers and a sling to lift it onto the fairground's industrial scale, fair organizers said, the same process used for every entrant regardless of size.