Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Weigh-Off 2026: Gienger Wins Again

“Pretty unbelievable” is how Ronan Fowler, organizer of the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, described Travis Gienger’s ability to grow a champion through 30-degree Minnesota nights, NBC Bay Area reported. The Anoka, Minnesota, grower won the 53rd edition of the Half Moon Bay, California, contest on Oct. 12 with a 2,389-pound giant named Rocky. At the contest’s $9-per-pound rate, the win paid $21,501.

The title was Gienger’s fifth at Half Moon Bay, and it came one year after he was unable to compete at all.

A 35-hour drive with a 2,389-pound passenger

The official 2026 results posted by the weigh-off list Gienger first in the Open Division at 2,389 pounds, with a prize of $21,501. Jake Leonard of Rocklin, California, placed second at 2,273 pounds and won $3,000, plus a separate $1,000 award for the biggest pumpkin grown in California. Brian Christensen of Rexburg, Idaho, took third at 1,873 pounds.

Gienger, a horticulture teacher, grows his pumpkins in a backyard patch in Minnesota. He drove about 35 hours to bring Rocky to the California coast, NBC Bay Area reported, hauling a fruit roughly the size of a small car. Temperatures in that patch dipped below freezing this season. After the win, Gienger told the station that a fifth championship was the goal he had come to California to reach.

Rocky put on most of its size in a short burst. Gienger told the Half Moon Bay Review that the pumpkin gained nearly 1,700 pounds in July alone. He picked the seed online, choosing genetics tied to a 2,819-pound United Kingdom pumpkin that set a world record in 2025, in hopes that Rocky would become a record contender of its own.

Along with the prize money, the Review reported, Gienger received a championship ring designed by Goldworks and a place of honor in the Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival parade.

The 2026 win also closed a gap. Gienger’s three-year winning streak at Half Moon Bay ended in 2025, when rot damaged his pumpkin and kept him out of the contest. That year, Brandon Dawson of Santa Rosa won with a 2,346-pound entry. Dawson could not attend this year because of a back injury; friends brought his pumpkin, which weighed 1,593 pounds and finished sixth.

How Rocky stacked up against the record books

Rocky was the heaviest pumpkin at Half Moon Bay, but it was well short of a record, and Gienger said he had hoped to do better. The weigh-off’s own record still belongs to him: a 2,749-pound pumpkin he brought to the 50th contest in 2023.

That 2023 pumpkin, nicknamed “Michael Jordan,” went on to set a separate mark. Guinness World Records lists it as the largest jack-o’-lantern by circumference, at 253 inches around, after caricature artist Eric Jones carved it in Clarence, New York, in November 2023. Guinness also describes Gienger as a horticulture teacher who has grown several record-breaking giant pumpkins, including an earlier record-holder named “Maverick.”

The swings in the record book have been sharp for years. Guinness noted that Belgian farmer Mathias Willemijns held the heaviest-pumpkin title for almost five years, from October 2016 to September 2021, with a pumpkin of about 2,624 pounds, the longest reign on record. The fastest turnover came on Oct. 2, 1999, when a record set in the United Kingdom was beaten in the United States the same day.

Missing the record at Half Moon Bay cost Gienger an extra $30,000 bonus that the contest offers for breaking the world mark, NBC Bay Area reported.

The world record itself changed hands twice in the days around the California contest. According to a Guinness World Records report, British grower Ian Paton set a record of 2,856 pounds, 12.8 ounces on Oct. 3, beating the 2,819-pound pumpkin he grew with his twin brother, Stuart, in 2025. One week later, on Oct. 10, a 3,156-pound pumpkin weighed in Rhode Island became the first on record to top 3,000 pounds. The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth assessed that entry, and Guinness reported it measured 252 inches around, just short of the Patons’ circumference record.

The rest of the Half Moon Bay leaderboard

California growers filled most of the top 10. After Leonard and Christensen, the official results list Tony Alameda of San Juan Bautista at 1,760 pounds, Leo Jimenez of Madera at 1,625 pounds, Dawson at 1,593 pounds, Linden Fowler of Napa at 1,555 pounds, Jim Wilkinson of Morgan Hill at 1,526 pounds, John Hawkley of Napa at 1,485 pounds, and Carla Suehowicz of Sonora at 1,133 pounds. Places five through 10 each paid $1,000.

Smaller pumpkins earned their own awards. Tom McGuirk of Half Moon Bay won the prize for the biggest Coastside-grown pumpkin, a 352-pound entry from his first time competing. McGuirk told the Review the pumpkin was “just a fun challenge” that he took on with his wife and two children as a family project.

The prettiest pumpkin award, named for the Joe Cotchett family, went to Vince Zunino of Los Altos Hills for a 294-pound pumpkin called Tinkerbell. Zunino has attended the weigh-off for 30 years and told the Review that an award-winning pumpkin starts with picking the right seed. Of his children, he told the paper: “They don’t grow pumpkins anymore.”

SFist noted that the 2026 result returned the title to the same Minnesota grower who set the contest record three years ago. Rocky was set to appear in the festival parade through downtown Half Moon Bay the weekend after the weigh-off.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Nick Ares – CC BY-SA 2.0/Wikimedia Commons