My goodness! Giant pumpkin contest to open the Topsfield Fair

Previous winners include Jamie Graham of Tyngsboro in 2022, whose monster pumpkin weighed a record-breaking 2,480 pounds.

This year's competition attracted “fewer participants than usual” due to difficult growing conditions, said David Thomson, the fair's public relations coordinator.

Pumpkins are a warm weather plant whose planting season begins in spring and peaks in August. This year's participants include participants from Maine and Vermont, Thomson said.

After all the pumpkins are weighed, the winner will be announced around 7 p.m., he said.

The weigh-in was introduced in 1984 as a supplement to the fair's “Family Garden Largest Cucurbit Contest,” which is still held in the vegetable barn today, according to the fair's website.

Wayne Hackney of New Milford, CT, received $100 in prize money after becoming this year's first weigh-in champion with his 433-pound pumpkin.

Soon after, Hackney and two other pumpkin growers founded the New England Pumpkin Growers Association. The fair became the organization's official weighing ground.

The competition follows the rules of the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, an umbrella organization. To be eligible for the competition, a pumpkin must weigh at least 350 pounds. Damaged pumpkins that are rotting or cracking are not eligible to participate.

Cash prizes range from $3,500 for first place to $100 for last place. And the most beautiful and ugliest pumpkins?

They get the same weight. Each breeder receives $200.

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Kiera McDonald can be reached at [email protected].