His name is Alexander Chusov, he is native of the Moscow brain and, as they count on Associated Pressjust shattered the largest pumpkin record ever cultivated in the country. 969 kilos of pumpkin to be exact.
And the question that is asked now half the world is not how the hell it is possible to cultivate a pumpkin of a ton, but something even more basic: why do it?
And the answer is more curious than it seems.
“It is a scientific job.” Or so I explained it Chusov himself. Not only had he carefully selected the seeds, but had built a special greenhouse (with heating in the floor and in the air) and has been calibrating “with great precision” the “nutritional and risk needs of pumpkin”.
But perhaps more than tracing a parallel with “science” it is better to draw it with “sport.”
Yes, yes. With sport. Because, although The idea is of Daria Yermilovaorganizer of the Giant Vegetable Contest in Moscow, it has all the meaning of the world. For more than a decade, giant vegetable competitions They raise passions In different parts of the world.
Giant vegetable competitions? Although they are tremendously popular in the Anglo -Saxon world, the strength of competitions such as Moscow shows that the fond of Pantagruélica horticulture grows worldwide.
In fact, if we are thorough, we can verify that Chusov’s pumpkin is not (or far) the pumpkin larger than has been cultivated in Europe In recent years. In 2024, Mario Vangeel swept the European pumpkins championship held every year in LuisBurg with A copy of 1,152 kilograms.
What does a thousand kilos pumpkin know? Nothing. That may be the most curious. Giant pumpkin varieties that are usually used in this type of competitions are not cultivated by their flavor. These varieties have a very high water content: that is what allows them to grow so much, but also what makes it completely tasteless.
For years We have been complaining that many vegetables (And especially tomatoess) They had been genetically selected to improve their appearance and productivity to the detriment of their flavor. What we are in the world of competition vegetables is this, but raised to the nth power.
It is an obsessive career to find the greatest vegetables and vegetables at what it costs. In the Sidamon pumpkin contestIn Lleida, you can see this same weekend live and direct.
Behind every circus … There is an important lesson: that nature has an almost infinite capacity to change shapes and colors. That is, behind the world’s largest pumpkin there is a message of hope.
Image | Great Pumpkin Comonwealth
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