By David MacDonald
david@peicanada.com

Pumpkin growing is serious business for 17-year-old Isaac Murnaghan of Roseneath, who currently holds the official record for the largest pumpkin grown on Prince Edward Island.
Isaac, son of Pius Murnaghan and Janice Foster, placed 10th overall at the Windsor-West Hants Pumpkin Festival in Windsor, Nova Scotia this past October, thanks to his pumpkin entry weighing in at 902 pounds. As a result, Isaac’s pumpkin also garnered the record for largest in PEI at the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC) sanctioned event. The GPC keeps track of pumpkin records worldwide.
To put it in an even bigger context, Isaac’s pumpkin is 478th among 1,773 officially weighed worldwide for 2011.
The Grade 12 student at Montague Regional High School began growing pumpkins two years ago as part of a friendly family rivalry.
“When my grandfather (Gordon Foster) first grew them, we kind of had a competition. I lost the last two years,” Isaac laughed, adding that the Nova Scotia resident defeated him this year by growing a 985-pound pumpkin.
Isaac’s mom also got into the action and started growing her own pumpkins. She bested Isaac this year by growing a 912-pound pumpkin, but Ms Foster doesn’t hold the official Island record as her pumpkin was weighed at the Great Pumpkin Weigh-off at Vesey’s Seeds in York, which is not a GPC-sanctioned event.
Ms Foster said Isaac’s pumpkin could have gone over 1,000 pounds this year, but it was a bad growing season with a lot of rain and not much sun.
“All of the weights tended to be lower across the Maritimes,” Ms Foster said.
Isaac is modest about how he’s able to grow such large pumpkins, but says they need “lots” of water and fertilizer and the soil has to be properly balanced. Isaac is already getting the ground ready for next year’s entries.
“I spend a lot of time in the pumpkin patch, one to two hours a day in the summer.”
Many pumpkin growers are passionate about this activity, and the most successful ones are known the world over. There is a popular market for seeds taken from some of those record-holding pumpkins in the hopes those seeds will help grow an even larger entry. One seed from the 2010 world record holder, a pumpkin weighing in at 1,810 pounds, sold at auction for $1,600.
Isaac’s 902-pound pumpkin was grown from the seeds of another successful grower, Jeff Reid of Nova Scotia, who placed second at the Windsor weigh-off.
Ms Foster said Isaac is an intense follower of giant pumpkins and the growers who take part, and logs on to bigpumpkins.com for information on auctions and other activity.
“Some people have their morning coffee, Isaac goes to the computer to check out the latest news on the pumpkins,” Ms Foster said. “When you see a name, you know their story and where they live and what pumpkins did well and what pumpkins didn’t do well.”
While Isaac considers pumpkin growing to be a hobby, he is considering his next step once he graduates from Montague Regional High School, and is pondering the idea of taking up plant sciences for his post-secondary education.
In any case, Isaac has no plans to stop his efforts in growing that bigger and better pumpkin.
“I’ll hopefully break 1,000 pounds next year,” Isaac said. “I’d like to beat Grandpa too.” 

Photo: Isaac Murnaghan is seen here with his award-winning pumpkin at the Windsor-West Hants Pumpkin Festival in Windsor, Nova Scotia. His 902-pound entry was officially named the record holder for the largest pumpkin grown on PEI at the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth sanctioned event. Submitted photo