Ron Wallace exulted after his pumpkin weighed in at 2,009 pounds Friday at the Topsfield Fair. (Photo: Aram Boghosian for the Boston Globe)
The 2,000-pound barrier is the giant pumpkin equivalent of the four-minute mile. It was so elusive that Topsfield offered a $10,000 bonus for the first grower to break it. ...
The 1,000-pound barrier was not broken until the year 2000, and it took all of pumpkin history to get that far. The thought of going farther, to hit the heaviest word we use in colloquial speech — a ton — seemed too much. It would mean doubling something already dangerously huge; there didn’t seem any way the pumpkin could structurally support itself. Certainly no one thought they’d be having this conversation in just 12 years. ...
The chief difference between the 1,000-pound barrier and the 2,000-pound barrier, growers say, is the Internet. With it, mistakes were shared and avoided, techniques spilled because half the fun is bragging, and the whole thing opened up to everyone. As a group, growers simply got better at it. Weights have raced forward every year. The world record almost always falls. In 2006 at Topsfield, Wallace was the first to break 1,500, and the next year nine people beat that. They pushed. They pollinated earlier and took risks. ...
Excerpt from World's largest-ever fruit dominates Super Bowl of pumpkin weigh-offs
by Billy Baker, Boston Globe, 29 September 2012 © 2012 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY
A fun illustration of the power of exchanging knowledge and experience with peers! I have to admit that I've always been a fan of giant vegetables (someday I'll make a pilgrimage to the county fairs in Alaska where I understand they grow a wide variety of enormous vegetables ... but I digress). This post makes me think that it might not be a bad idea to use this excerpt as a sidebar about the benefits of learning with/from peers. The pumpkin example really plants :) an image in one's mind -- it's tangible in a way that so few other examples of the benefits of online communities of practice are.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, pumpkins grow from the tissues of the plant's flower, so they are a fruit, not a vegetable! There it is, your botanical lesson for the day. :)
ReplyDeleteBrent, good to know. Thanks. Now, I'm officially a fan of giant fruits and vegetables :).
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