Chair­man of the To­co/San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Ter­ry Ron­don says he has reaped a pump­kin weigh­ing more than 100 pounds from his gar­den at To­co.

Ron­don brought the pump­kin to share with his lo­cal gov­ern­ment col­leagues dur­ing a con­sul­ta­tion with Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein, held at the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion on Tues­day.

Ron­don said he got the seeds and de­cid­ed to plant them.

"I had no idea it will get to this size. I de­cid­ed to bring this one and share it up," Ron­don said. He added that there were more un­usu­al­ly large pump­kins grow­ing in his field at To­co.

Agri­cul­ture econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj said a pump­kin of that size was un­usu­al as reg­u­lar pump­kins grown in T&T weighed be­tween a few pounds to 30 plus pounds.

"It could be a dif­fer­ent va­ri­ety of seeds. I would like to look at it to de­ter­mine whether it was the re­sult of plant sci­ence," he said. Ma­haraj not­ed that the Chi­nese squash pump­kin, a prod­uct of Chi­nese plant sci­ence, is now pop­u­lar in T&T and brought high­er re­turns for farm­ers.

He said tra­di­tion­al­ly, the cra­paud-back pump­kin grow­ing in T&T re­sult­ed in wastage.

"When a farmer cuts a few slices of a cra­paud-back pump­kin to sell, most times the rest of the pump­kin is wast­ed. With the Chi­nese squash, the farmer has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sell the en­tire pump­kin so there is no wastage."

He said gi­ant pump­kins could be grown for in­dus­tries and farms that deal with pro­cess­ing.