(Radio Iowa) – The winner of the Iowa State Fair’s Big Pumpkin contest is 200 pounds heavier than the pig that was crowned as the fair’s Big Boar. Kids, and adults, are lining up to snap photos with the big orange fruit that weighs over 12-hundred pounds. There were 20 entries in this year’s contest and they’re all on display outside the Agriculture Building on the state fairgrounds.

Rhonda Magnusson of Hartford is superintendent of Agriculture and Horticulture Crops at the Iowa State Fair. She says it’s not easy to produce a really huge pumpkin. Growers have to keep the varmints away — and keep the plants supplied with lots of water. “At some point they’ll grow about 40 pounds a day,” Magnussen says. It’s early in the pumpkin growing season and most competitions are held in the fall.

First place pumpkin in 2023 State Fair competition. (RI photo)

“If we had this in the first of October or something, we’d have like over 2000 pound pumpkins,” Magnussen says. The Iowa State Fair started its Big Pumpkin contest nearly 20 years ago and the winners don’t just get bragging rights. There’s an 18-hundred-50 dollar prize.

This year’s winner was grown by a team. Don Young and his son-in-law Tommy Rhodes of Des Moines have won the contest before.