720-kilo giant crowned Germany's heaviest pumpkin of the year

A man from Bavaria has been awarded the coveted “Germany’s Heaviest Pumpkin of the Year” prize at the Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival. His monster specimen weighed an impressive 720 kilograms.

Heaviest pumpkin crown goes to Bavarian champ breeder

Bavarian pumpkin breeder Michael Asam, who hails from the municipality of Adelhauzen, just outside Munich, stormed his way into first place at the annual pumpkin weighing contest at the Blühendes Barock gardens in Ludwigsburg. It’s the second year in a row that he’s walked away with the coveted trophy.

“The size of the pumpkin is simply impressive - especially considering they take the same time to grow as small pumpkins,” said the competition’s organiser, Stefan Hinner. 

Second prize at this year’s contest went to Matthias Würsching from Einhausen, with a pumpkin weighing 702,5 kilograms. The bronze medal went to Elmar Hubertus, who lugged his 617,5-kilo pumpkin all the way from Marpingen-Urexweiler in Saarland.

Heaviest pumpkin of all time weighed over 1.000 kilograms

Those might sound like some pretty impressive vegetables, but they weren’t enough to displace the heaviest German pumpkin record, which was set by another Bavarian, Mario Weishäup, back in 2018. His super squash weighed in at 916,5 kilograms. 

And even Weishäup’s German record falls far short of the world heaviest pumpkin record, which was set at the Blühendes Barock gardens in 2016, when Belgian grower Mathias Willemijns showed up with a pumpkin weighing an astonishing 1.191,5 kilograms. 

A foodie highlight in Germany’s event calendar, the Ludwigsburg Pumpkin festival is a quirky celebration of all things pumpkin, featuring pumpkin speciality dishes, pumpkin carvings, pumpkin variety shows and even a pumpkin slaughter event. Due to coronavirus restrictions, this year’s festival was a smaller affair, and unfortunately the weighing ceremony had to take place behind closed doors.