In August final 12 months, whereas weeding in a patch of backyard behind their dwelling in New Zealand, Colin and Donna Craig-Brown struck gold, or what appeared just like the world’s largest potato.
“I had a giant hoe in my hand, and it went, ‘clonk,’” stated Mr. Craig-Brown, talking by cellphone on Thursday from his farm close to Hamilton, the place a cow might be heard within the background. “I stated to my spouse, ‘What the hell’s that?’”
Then, he stated: “I acquired a fantastic massive four-pronged backyard fork and laid into it, like an over-excited Viking warrior. I thrust my foot deep into the earth, dragged this factor out, kicking and screaming. It was the dimensions of a garbage bin lid.”
They known as it Doug.
Doug, spelled Dug in some information reviews, was as bronze and as burly as any Thanksgiving turkey and weighed 17.4 kilos. It got here seemingly out of nowhere, and to Mr. and Ms. Craig-Brown, it seemed, tasted and felt very very like a giant potato. (They minimize off and ate a small piece of it — uncooked.)
The invention made its approach into the information media, and with subsequent weigh-ins, pleasure grew. After family and friends instructed the protuberance could be a contender for the Guinness Guide of World Data, the couple submitted an software for “the world’s heaviest potato,” sat again and waited.
All around the world, individuals have grown, proudly displayed and generally received prizes for his or her large pumpkins, potatoes and tomatoes. In February, a farmer in Israel was confirmed to have grown the world’s heaviest strawberry, in accordance with Guinness: 289 grams (10.19 ounces). For some, it’s a pastime; for others, an obsession with the promise of a world document, fleeting fame and maybe just a few chuckles. For the Craig-Browns, it was an accident.
Mr. Craig-Brown, 62, is the son of a horticultural scientist. He and his spouse, Donna, 60, ran a small farm. The couple had not beforehand grown potatoes, that means Doug would have needed to have been self-seeded. At 17.4 kilos, it was considerably bigger than the world’s heaviest identified potato, which weighed in at 11 kilos and was unearthed in 2010 by Peter Glazebrook, a seasoned grower of huge greens in Britain.
Because the couple waited for phrase from Guinness, doubts started to creep in elsewhere. To some within the commerce, the pictures of Doug instructed that, whereas spectacular, it wasn’t fairly a potato.
Then, an e-mail from Guinness landed in Mr. Craig-Brown’s inbox final week. A slice of the expansion had been submitted for DNA testing, and the outcomes confirmed the doubters’ suspicions: Doug was not a potato in any respect.
“Sadly the specimen shouldn’t be a potato and is, in truth, the tuber of a sort of gourd,” a spokesman for the group wrote, including, “Because of this we do sadly must disqualify the appliance.”
To these with out inexperienced thumbs, “tuber of a sort of gourd” could be frustratingly indirect wording. A tuber could be any sort of swollen underground stem — together with a potato. Gourds, which embody pumpkins, marrows and cucumbers, are fully unrelated crops.
So what’s Doug actually, the place did it come from, and why did it present up within the backyard close to Hamilton, a metropolis in New Zealand’s North Island? No clear solutions have emerged.
Chris Claridge, a horticulturist and the chief govt of the trade group Potatoes New Zealand, which assisted within the DNA testing, described the expansion as a sort of scar tissue on a wound, much like the lumps generally seen on timber after a department is eliminated.
“It may have had an an infection, it may have had a illness, it may have simply fashioned and grown as an accident of nature,” he stated. “Nevertheless it’s not even the identical household because the potato.”
He added: “Put it this fashion: We’re good at rising potatoes in New Zealand, however we’re not that good.”
For Mr. Craig-Brown, the end result was disappointing. It was additionally a puzzle that saved him awake at evening.
“How may a bloody gourd get in my backyard?” he recalled considering.
After which, a potential breakthrough.
“There was a stage the place I used to be rising these hybridized cucumbers, proper the place Doug appeared,” he stated. “Throughout a hybridization course of, who’s to say they didn’t crossbreed it with a gourd plant to offer it large illness resistance or prolific flowering?”
In a press release, Adam Millward, managing editor of Guinness World Data, stated, “This has been a captivating journey of discovery, and we’re glad we’ve been in a position to get to the foundation — properly, technically, tuber — of the matter.”
He additionally wished the Craig-Browns the most effective of their future horticultural endeavors.
As for Doug, Mr. Craig-Brown stated: “He’s a reasonably cool character, aye.”
“He’s fairly comfortable sitting there within the cryogenic storage facility that we’ve acquired right here on the farm — the deep freezer. He’s not fazed in any respect.”