A giant strawberry grown in Israel and weighing 289 grams (10.19 ounces) has been confirmed as the new Guinness World Record heaviest ever.
The record-breaking fruit was discovered on the Strawberries in the Field plantation run by the Ariel family in the Kadima-Zoran farming community in Israel's Central District.
It was 18 centimetres (seven inches) long, four centimetres thick and 34 centimetres in circumference, according to the statement.
The strawberry is of the Ilan variety, which was originally bred by Nir Dai at Israel's Agricultural Research Organization and is known to produce large berries.
Dai himself was present to witness the strawberry weighing and said that this year's strawberry season was late due to the cold weather, allowing multiple berries to grow together into one large fruit.
"The strawberry developed slowly for more than 45 days after flowering, which caused its large size at full maturity," he said.
The Ariel family, a father and his four children, indeed grew four oversized strawberries this year, but only one of them beat the previous record of 250 grams, which was weighed in Fukuoka, Japan, on 28 January 2015, according to the statement.
Speaking to news site Ynet on Monday, the Ariel brothers said they discovered the record on Friday. They said it was the largest they could remember in more than four decades of growing the fruit.
They checked the Guinness Book of Records and discovered that they had a new contender for the title of largest strawberry.
On Saturday evening they submitted a notice to the Guinness website and the following day they brought a notary to witness a formal weighing before the fruit began to rot and lose its size.
The brothers made a short video clip of the weigh-in, in which they compared the strawberry to an iPhone XR that was just half the weight.
"It's an incredible feeling," Yedid Ariel told Ynet. "We are getting a lot of praise from the community, everyone is applauding. It's local pride."
Ariel did not say what would be done with the prize fruit, or, if it was tasted, what it would taste like.
Source: The Times of Israel
Meanwhile, Laure O'Connor showed on Twitter a strawberry picked in 2021 that appears to be much larger than the one certified by Guinness World Records:
SOMETIMES STRAWBERRIES DON'T STRAWBERRY VERY WELL PIC.TWITTER.COM/KWIYG3KG4Y
- DR LAUREN O'CONNOR (@PALAEOCONNOR) AUGUST 31, 2021
