Giant 579-kg pumpkin smashes title for Japan’s heaviest
Hiroshi Nishiyama is seen with the massive pumpkin that won the “prefecture’s heaviest pumpkin” contest, in the city of Kamogawa, Chiba Prefecture, on Sept. 10, 2023.
A gigantic pumpkin smashed the country’s record at a competition held Sept. 10 in this east Japan city, weighing in at a massive 579 kilograms.
The 14th competition for heaviest pumpkin in Chiba Prefecture was held at the “Minnami no sato” multipurpose facility run by Ryohin Keikaku Co., the owner of Muji retail outlets.
The pumpkin grown by 73-year-old Hiroshi Nishiyama, the manager of a surveying company in the city of Noda, Chiba Prefecture, beat Japan’s previous record-holding pumpkin by 17.4 kg and the contest’s second-place entry by 163 kg.
Even though this year’s hot weather and low rainfall offered challenges for growers, it was the first over-500-kg pumpkin to appear at the contest for some time, causing quite a stir. “I thought it was around 450 kg at the most, so I was surprised when it was weighed at over 500 kg,” the contest winner said.
Nishiyama will next bring his enormous pumpkin to the 37th annual Japan-wide competition held on Kagawa Prefecture’s island of Shodoshima on Sept. 17, where it is hoped to finish first nationwide while officially breaking the nation’s record.
Meanwhile, 62-year-old Kamogawa resident Koji Ueno, who was also until now the record-holding grower of Japan’s heaviest pumpkin, took first place in the simultaneously held “longest gourd in the prefecture” competition with a 270.3-centimeter-long fruit.(Japanese original by Nobumichi Iwasaki, Tateyama Local Bureau
Source: Maniachi
