Rhode Island farmer smashes record for world's largest green squash
Joe Jutras used to work as a cabinet maker. But now that he's retired, he no longer builds things. He encourages things to build themselves. Giant things. Mr. Jutras already holds a world record for the longest long gourd and the largest pumpkin. And this weekend he became the first grower in the world to complete a trifecta by breaking another record with a carefully-nurtured giant fruit.
Jutras spoke with As it Happens host Carol Off from his home in Scituate, Rhode Island. Here is part of their conversation.
Joe, big congratulations.
Thank you very much, Carol.
What's the record you broke this weekend?
I grew a green squash. It was a green squash record that we broke.
And how big was your squash?
This one that we weighed in this week was 2,118 pounds (960.7 kilograms).
That's a (U.S.) ton!
That's a ton and 118 pounds to boot. It's actually so big that we can't put 'em in a pickup truck any longer. We have to put 'em in a trailer. We've got a six-and-a-half foot by eight-foot (1.9 X 2.4 metres) trailer that we haul these in now. The circumference of the fruit is 18 feet (5.5 metres) around. Side-to-side, front-to-back it's like 125 inches (3.175 metres). So it's definitely a good-sized fruit.
Everybody was going crazy. I was jumping up and down.- Joe Jutras
So when you wheeled in this squash, how did people react?
Well, everybody was saying, "Gee, you know, I hope that goes heavy for you. You never really know, Carol, until you put it on the scale whether or not it's going to 'go to chart'. What that means is you have a circumference measurement, and it ends up calculating how many cubic inches you have. Then you have a chart to compare that to. And the chart on my fruit at 469 inches (11.9 metres) was 2,009 pounds (911 kilograms). So I was five percent over the chart, which is fantastic. To go over the chart is an extra bonus. Everybody was going crazy. I was jumping up and down.
OK, people who are listening to this are waiting for me to ask the most important question, which is: how do you do it?
Well, you have to have good soil, good weather, and good luck. There's always luck involved when you're growing outdoors. You can't have too much rain. Actually, we would prefer no rain, because you can always add the amount of water you want.
There must be something you're feeding the soil. Something that others don't know. What is that? Come on, Joe!
It takes a lot of time! You have to put your time in. We probably put three or four hours a day in on these plants. Most important of all is putting enough insectide down and fungicide down. You also have to what they call 'drench' with a fungicide — so that you can get that fungicide into the fruit, so the fruit doesn't rot from the inside out. This fruit was 102 days old. You have to have a very healthy fruit. And you do that by giving it what it needs to live that long.
I presume you're not planning on eating these fruits.
No. I don't think you'd want to eat this fruit. 'Cause I fertilized it every day.
Do you get any prize money? Do you get a trophy for this?
We get what they call the green jacket. This green jacket is something, that — if you've been aiming for [it] for a long time — is really sacred, and you're hot to get this green jacket.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. For more on this story, listen to our full interview with Joe Jutras.