A British grower broke his own Guinness World Record with a 2,856.8-pound pumpkin, the heaviest ever officially weighed under adjudicator watch.
Ian Paton, 65, of Lymington in Hampshire, brought the giant gourd he named Bagheera to the Wargrave Nursery Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off in Berkshire on Oct. 3. Under supervision from a Guinness World Records adjudicator, the pumpkin hit 2,856.8 pounds and topped the mark Paton already held.
That earlier record belonged to Paton and his brother Stuart. In 2025 they set the heaviest-pumpkin standard at 2,819.25 pounds with a specimen they called Muggle. Bagheera beat it by nearly 38 pounds.
Paton told reporters he spent up to six hours a day on the crop and gave the plant about 130 gallons of water each day. The result was a pumpkin heavy enough to redraw the record book again in a single season.
The new champion will sit on display for the next few weeks at Sunnyfields farm near Southampton. After that, Paton said, it becomes feed for cows. No injuries, closures, or official disputes came with the weigh-off, just a bigger number and a short public run before the livestock get their share.
Giant-produce contests reward patience more than flash. Paton’s daily routine, long hours and steady water, produced a clear gain over last year’s joint effort with his brother. Readers who follow other extreme feats will recognize the same grind in coverage of an Austrian mountain biker’s precision drop for a separate Guinness mark.
Guinness keeps a wide book of odd and athletic extremes. The latest volume even highlights a 19-inch car, a five-year-old yoga teacher, and the most tattooed man alive in its 2027 features lineup, proof the organization still tracks everything from tiny machines to human endurance.
Endurance records keep stacking up elsewhere, too. An Alberta grandmother’s multi-hour plank bid drew notice in the same record lane, and a related report on a 61-year-old grandmother’s five-hour plank showed how steady effort, not spectacle alone, still moves the needle.
Paton’s pumpkin story sits in that same plain category: measured weight, named grower, supervised scale, and a prior mark he already owned. A Slovenian stuntman’s 47-second flaming handstand grabbed attention for danger and timing; Bagheera grabbed it for mass and maintenance.
The weigh-off itself was straightforward. Officials at the Berkshire nursery event ran the scale with a Guinness adjudicator present. The number came in above the 2025 Muggle mark. Paton, already a record holder at 65, simply grew a heavier fruit and carted it to the same kind of public test.
He has said the display window is short and the final use is practical. After the farm showing near Southampton, the pumpkin becomes cow feed. That close matches the work that grew it, daily labor, heavy water, and a result the scale can verify without speeches.
Private grit still fills record books when someone shows up every day and does the unglamorous work. Paton’s pumpkin did not need a press team. It needed a grower who kept watering.
