We don’t post oddities ‘just for fun’ often enough. And I believe the world could use more smiles. So today, we present the tale of the World’s Largest Blueberry. You’ll be amazed! You’ll be amused! You’ll want to run out and buy blueberries!
New World Record Blueberry: About the size of a tennis ball…
It weighs a hefty (for a berry) 0.71 oz. / 20.4 g. And it measures 1/55 in. / 39.3 mm across – making it approximately the same diameter as a tennis ball. And the Guinness people have awarded it the coveted title of World’s Largest Blueberry.
Where and when
The big berry was harvested last November, but only received official confirmation of its Guinness honour recently. It was produced by a commercial berry grower, Costa Group, in Corindi, New South Wales, Australia.
The variety is ‘Eterna’, noted for producing large fruits with crisp texture and a long shelf life, the company said, in a statement. “Eterna as a variety has a really great flavour and consistently large fruit. When we picked this one, there were probably around 20 other berries of a similar size,” noted Costa Senior Horticulturalist Brad Hocking.
A serious undertaking
The race to grow the world’s largest blueberry is no joking matter for Australians. The previous record holder was grown by rival plant breeder in Western Australia in 2020, Costa’s media statement notes. That one weighed in at 0.57 oz. / 16.2 g.
Not just blueberries
Other iconic fruits have been enshrined in the Guinness pantheon.
Israel is home to the Guinness record holder for World’s Largest Strawberry. And it makes the monster blueberry look ordinary. The big strawberry weighed 10 oz. / 289 g and was harvested by farmer Chahi Ariel in 2022.
According to the Guinness website, the world’s largest grapefruit was harvested by Douglas & Mary Beth Meyer, in Slidell, Louisiana, in January, 2019. I weighed a mammoth 7.9 lb. / 3.59 kg. It also holds the title of Largest Grapefruit by Circumference. It would be tough for any challenger to unseat that record holder!
My take
Gargantuan fruits and veggies may be spectacular in appearance, but conventional wisdom – and years of experience helping in my Dad’s garden – tell me that most ‘larger’ fruits result from excess rain just before harvest. They ‘blow up’ (in the sense of ‘inflating’) with water, and are both mushy and bland. But Hocking insists the Eterna variety produces huge berries with full flavour and ‘crisp’ texture. ‘Crisp’ is not a word I’ve previously associated with blueberries. But I’ll defer to him on the issue. It’s his berry.
Nevertheless, I’ve broadened my horizons on the world of monster fruits and veggies. Now, those gargantuan pumpkins everyone makes such a fuss over every fall seem somehow less impressive…
~ Maggie J.