A strawberry weighing 289 grams has been declared the world’s heaviest by the Guinness World Records. The strawberry was picked on a family farm near the city of Netanya in central Israel. The berry is 18 cm long, 4 cm thick and 34 cm in circumference. It is of a local variety of strawberries called Ilan, known for their larger than usual sizes. The berry’s size is due to multiple berries that grew and fused together to form one large strawberry.
The size of the world’s biggest strawberry was put into perspective when Ariel weighed it after weighing an iPhone XR. The iPhone weighed 194 grams, almost 100 g less than the massive strawberry. The Ilan variety of strawberry was originally bred by Dr. Nir Dai, a researcher from the Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), at the ARO Volcani Center in Bet-Dagan, near Tel-Aviv. The Ilan variety of strawberry is known producing large fruits. “During this strawberry season in late January and early February it was particularly cold,” explained Dr. Nir Dai, who was one of the witnesses during the strawberry’s weigh-in. This meant that multiple berries grew and fused together to form one large strawberry. The cold weather conditions described by Dr. Nir Dai led to a bumper crop of strawberries for Ariel’s fruit farm, producing not just one, but four sizable strawbs. However, the heavyweight champion weighed in at 289 g (10.19 oz) – or 299 g with its stem.
The previous record for world’s heaviest strawberry was 250 g (8.82 oz). The berry was grown by Koji Nakao (Japan) and was weighed in Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan, on 28 January 2015. The strawberry was a Japanese variety called Amaou.
Credit : Guinness world records
Picture Credit : Google
