this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2025
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plumpkins (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
 
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[–] icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago

Pit them against the lobster church.

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 3 points 7 hours ago

Memory unlocked, lol:

🎢

Decomposing Pumpkins!

Throw it at that plump kid

Because his mom did

Not give us good candy on Halloween!!

🎢

jack o lantern carved with a large sawz-all blade.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 29 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Well, I doubt they can get larger than earth, so I’d say it’s somewhere between 3,000 lbs and earth’s weight.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Earth's weight?

[–] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 3 points 6 hours ago

Someone has to do the maths on the best possible nutrient, water and solar energy ratios required by pumpkins. Maybe pumpkins win!

[–] spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works 18 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Unforeseen twist: Earth 2.0 is a pumpkin.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 hours ago

Do we push the billionaires onto the pumpkin or do we all go on the pumpkin?

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Waiting for an eldritch God to carve us out

[–] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Maybe this could be the best timeline after all.

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 16 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Are they still edible or just enormous garbage and waste of resources?

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 12 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

waste of resources, i thinks it mostly water+ all the plants diverting all its energy to the pumpkin, and no flowering too. the edible ones tend to be sugar pumpkins(pies,cakes,,,etc) which are the nice small spherical ones. i think you can eat ornamental pumpkins(not the fairy tail) they arnt that good though, we used to eat the ornamental ones after halloween, but its very time consuming to gut out the insides and the seeds and it tends to be messy, although the seeds can be harvested to be fried. the larger ones tend not to be edible.

i think going for the sugar pumpkins is the best way to eat it, if you want to make something useful out of it.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

No flowering? You need a flower to get a pumpkin

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 hours ago

I'm assuming they mean the plant has any other flowers culled so as not to consume resources

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

You have to gut the inside to make a jack-o-lantern, and I think I remember my mom cooking with that gunk from inside at least once or twice.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

bro you can make an amazing snack out of those pumpkin seeds. every year I try to do 2-3 jack-o-lantern pumpkins and end up with ~2l of seeds after scooping out all the innards. Dump them into a colander, rinse and scrub until all the pumpkin guts are washed out, and then roast them in your oven. I prep mine with a bit of olive oil then sprinkle with some hawaiian seasoning or garlic salt - spread it out on a baking sheet, 325f for an hour or so until thoroughly dry.

[–] chrizzowski@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Such a good snack. Works for any gourds really. Just did a butternut squash soup and fried up the seeds to sprinkle on top of each bowl.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

never thought to gut other gourds, will try that!

[–] robolemmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 62 points 1 day ago (1 children)

C’mon, how did you miss the obvious: plumpkins?

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Time lapse video on those things are a trip. They expand noticeably by the hour.

[–] AyuTsukasa@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago

I love the can for scale.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 6 points 19 hours ago

this is lobsters all over again

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

We just have to feed the pumpkins a steady diet of americans and we could hit the 2 ton mark here soon.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Where are we gonna find 4 average Americans!

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 10 points 20 hours ago

Naw, all the toxic chemicals would then kill the pumpkins! (see e.g. radioactive Wal-Mart shrimp)

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago

Fuck you, don't tell me what I know, The Atlantic.

[–] Busyvar@jlai.lu 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Unfortunately giant pumpkin taste pretty bad,

[–] drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Suppose the pumpkin plant could be bred or genetically engineered to retain the desirable taste of its fruits even at very large sizes.

Would this even improve the caloric yield per acre? Or would the bottleneck be the available energy from photosynthesis? In other words do giant pumpkins take a proportionally larger amount of leaf surface area, such that you're not actually getting any more pumpkin mass per acre than with many smaller pumpkins?

As I understand it normal pumpkins are already pretty high up there in terms of caloric yield, so perhaps there's not much more room to push it.

[–] RecallMadness@lemmy.nz 5 points 14 hours ago

It might be more efficient per acre, but it’s less efficient per person-hour.

As the weight goes up, the stress on the skin goes up. But the skin doesn’t go any stronger.

So you need to feed, support (literally) and manage them round the clock to control their growth and stop them from splitting and allowing pests and bacteria inside.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago

we'll have to test that theory with a massive pumpkin pie and pumpkin and cream cheese roll

[–] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

How does that work? Selective breeding? Fertilizer? Growth hormones? New growing techniques? What is it that's allowing these pumpkins to get bigger and bigger?

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 12 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (2 children)

Giving farms water for practically free while private citizens have to buy it in bottles (from CocaCola or Nestle, who are also getting it for free) from the store because the water is either laden with e.coli (usually from the same farms not handling runoff of animal waste properly) or just...not there by the time it gets to them.

Or PFAS. Can't forget about that.

3000lb pumpkins aren't something to be proud of. They are trophies of gluttony.

We burn down the Amazon to grow soy...not to feed people, but to feed cows. We are growing water intense crops like almonds basically in the fucking desert. And we are wasting tens of thousands of pounds of water to make a 3000lb pumpkin. Won't get eaten. It will be on display until it rots. Meanwhile, I can't wash my car in the summer...but I can pay the carwash! I can't water my flowers, but the golf course can!

What the actual fuck is wrong with people.

[–] Soulcreator@programming.dev 4 points 11 hours ago

I'm not an expert in the whole giant pumpkin phenomenon, but it's my understanding that the pumpkins are generally grown by hobbyists for fun rather than farmers on an industrial scale. So I don't think it's a trade-off on our food system, where kids are starving in Africa because farmers are wasting their resources growing pumpkins. I think it's more of an, "look what I did" type thing.

[–] 0tan0d@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago

Your mixing commercial farming with enjoyment selective breeding. The 3k lbs pumpkin is only grown in a couple of plants. Anything growing too slow is removed ASAP and put in a compost pile. Its just a fun way to enjoy the growing season in the middle of bum fuck no where.

[–] dumples@midwest.social 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I saw one of those around 2000 lb pumpkins. They are a beautiful sight. I want to grow one but I know I don't have the space

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Holy fuck, I just looked up the record. Not what I was expecting at all. It looks like one of those 700 lb. people who can't roll off of their futon. Even the underside is shockingly similar.

[–] SillyDude@lemmy.zip 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Every year in Oregon people cut holes in giant pumpkins and race them as boats.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Chappell Roan taking the outside lead there!

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago

Also, Darmiscotta, Maine... We went 2 weeks ago. My first "Pumpkin Fest & Regatta".

Pumpkin boats

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

I probably should work on getting the bush type plant mutant into the giant pumpkin germplasm again.

The first tests were had a 400lb pumpkin into a 8'x8' plot. They split and cracked however.