The Greatest Gourd: North American Pumpkin Record Set by Misting System

Half Moon Bay’s 44th Annual Art and Pumpkin Festival ended with a state record, a North American record and interesting commentary into the benefit of supplementing traditional irrigation techniques with the tiny water droplets a misting system produces.

John Hawkley’s record setting colossal ghost, weighing in at 2058 pounds.

John Hawkley of Napa harnessed his aptly named “colossal ghost” to the scales, weighing in at 2,058 pounds, respectively. This breaks previous state and North American records and is only 265 pounds shy of breaking the world record. When asked how he did it, his response was simple, “I don’t know. I found that they seemed to be happy with the water that I was giving them, so I just kept it constant. I didn’t over feed it, I was just gonna take what I got…I found that an overhead misting system [was] something they seemed to like, so I just kept it like that the rest of the day, week or the year.”

As California’s drought continues to ravish the state, considerable inquiries and interest into agricultural irrigation efficacy have been published. And with good reason, as agricultural water use on a net basis makes up 80% of total human consumption. The other 20% is attributed to urban areas for uses in landscaping, residential interior, commercial, industrial and energy uses.

It has long been proven that low volume mist irrigation systems reduce internal moisture stress, increases yield and influences the quality of potatoes and other vegetables. The advantage of irrigating with the use of a low volume, high pressure misting system in either greenhouses, or simply in an outside garden, is the efficiency and lack of water waste that is produced. The total volume use is minimized substantially in comparison to normal low pressure irrigation systems. Atomized water particles, the tiniest fraction of a full water particle, enter into the plant’s structures more easily, is fully absorbed and in turn generates positive results in almost every category of growth.

Hawkley had absolutely no idea that his intuition would guide him to a take home prize of $13,000 and the accolades of breaking two substantial records. By simply recognizing what the pumpkin responded to, Hawkley was able to cash in on the efficiency of a misting system. His colossal ghost will be harvested soon, the seeds doled out to the serious growers for next year’s competition. Perhaps the next generation of growers will learn from Hawkley’s incredible discovery.