Posted on 02/17/22
| News Source: i24
'The strawberry developed slowly for more than 45 days from flowering,' says researcher Nir Dai
A farmer from Israel, Tzachi Ariel, grew the world's largest strawberry, Guinness World Records announced on Tuesday.
The almost 11 ounce strawberry was five times the average weight of a regular berry of the local variety, Nir Dai, a researcher at Israel's Volcani Institute where the strain was developed said, according to Reuters.
It was seven inches long, four centimeter thick, and 34 centimeters in circumference, Guinness announced.
Dai was on hand to witness the weighing of the strawberry, noting that the strawberry season this year was late due to cold weather. This enabled multiple berries to grow together into one large berry.
“The strawberry developed slowly for more than 45 days from flowering, which caused its large size at full ripening stage,” he said, according to The Times of Israel.
The Ariel family who grew the supersized fruit, consisting of a father and his four sons, grew four giant strawberries this year, yet only one could beat the previous 250-gram recordholder. The previous record-holding strawberry was weighed in Fukuoka, Japan, on January 28, 2015.
The family filed a claim with the Guinness website on Saturday, bringing it in to a notary to witness a formal weighing before the fruit began to lose size.
“It is an amazing feeling,” Yedid Ariel told Ynet. “We are getting a lot of praise from the community, everyone is cheering. It is local pride.”