Dale Marshall of Anchorage has won the Alaska State Fair's giant pumpkin weigh-off for the ninth consecutive year, rolling a 1,436-pound entry onto the scale in Palmer on Sunday to claim his 15th overall title in the competition.
The win, first reported by Alaska's News Source, keeps Marshall's streak intact but falls well short of his own state record of 2,147 pounds, set at the same fair in 2022. A plumber by trade who entered his first pumpkin at the fair 14 years ago, Marshall grows his entries in a home greenhouse, dismantling the roof and lifting the finished pumpkin out with a crane once it outgrows the structure. He has described the work as mostly vine management and water — as much as 75 to 100 gallons a day during peak summer growth — using Atlantic Giant seed lines bred from past champion pumpkins.
Alaska's unusually long summer daylight hours, nearly 19 hours of sun a day around the solstice in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, have made the region one of the world's most productive corners for oversized produce, regularly turning out pumpkins, cabbages and zucchini that dwarf entries from warmer states.
The Alaska weigh-off is one of dozens held around the country each late summer as growers chase entries into the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth's national rankings, with bigger championship weigh-offs — including Half Moon Bay, California, and Clarence, New York — still to come in October. Marshall's win puts him back in contention for that national leaderboard, though growers in states with longer growing seasons often edge out Palmer's entries once every regional weigh-off has reported.
The fair's produce competition continues this week with its 30th annual giant cabbage weigh-off, another Matanuska Valley specialty that has produced cabbages topping 100 pounds in past years.
