How big have you seen a pumpkin? Or how big a cabbage you ate? More than a few kilos, right? However, Alaska is the world's largest vegetable producer, where a pumpkin weighs about 1 ton. And a cabbage weighs over 62 kg!
This is not a whimsical story of a fairy tale kingdom! There is a state where all the giant vegetables can be seen. An exhibition of all these giant vegetables goes on in a traditional fair of that state.
About one-third of the state's population is celebrated at the Alaska State Fair.
The 12-day fair is held in Palmas, Alaska, between August and September each year. Like other fairs in the United States, there are also various stalls, food shops, and rides. Different sports and competitions are organized However, the special attraction of this fair is the exhibition of giant vegetables!
In 1941, for the first time, a giant cabbage exhibition competition was organized at the Alaska State Fair! There, a crab weighing 10 kg is the winner. The prize was only 25USD. Since then, records have been broken. The current record is that the cabbage weighing 72.6 kg still wins the title of the heaviest cabbage which was exhibited in 1995! In the last 60 years, all kinds of vegetables including carrots, radishes, turnips, broccoli, potatoes and pumpkins have been added to the cabbage!
Such giant vegetables are rarely seen except in Alaska. Because of its geographical location, a unique feature of Alaska gives vegetables the power to grow twice as much, which is a fair load anywhere else in the world. Vegetable production tenure is very limited here! There are only 105 days available in a year for vegetable cultivation. But during this time the duration of the day is about 20 hours. As a result, photosynthesis in Alaska vegetable plants is twice as much as in other places!
The pumpkin here grows up to about 10 kg a day! So far the highest weight pumpkin is 930.3 kg which is about one ton! A farmer named Dale Marshall produced the pumpkin in 2019. However, just because the sun lasts 20 hours a day does not mean that anyone can produce such a gigantic vegetable. Farmers spend a lot of time researching the production of these giant vegetables. From the proper selection of seeds to the care of trees and the transformation of vegetables into giants, farmers resort to a variety of techniques, resulting in many farmers being called scientists.
The current market price of vegetables at the Alaska State Fair is only USD 75. But the value of the labor and labor expended by the farmers in the production of each giant vegetable is much higher. However, the farmers have given their all in the production of these vegetables. Because the value of everything cannot be judged by money. Combined with the USD 75 State Fair in Alaska, the state's heritage and culture is an unparalleled blend of money that is impossible with money.
