An Israeli farmer has grown the world’s heaviest strawberry, according to Guinness World Records.
“It was uplifting. We’ve been waiting for it for a long time,” said Chahi Ariel, who found the record-breaking strawberry at the Ariel family farm, located in the Kadima-Zoran local council, a year ago.
At 289 grams, the strawberry was about five times the average weight of a berry of this variety, said Nir Dai, a researcher and strawberry breeder at Israel’s Volcani Institute where the strain was developed.
The strawberry was 18 cm long, 4 cm thick and 34 cm in circumference, according to the record book’s website. It looked like several berries fused at the green leafy cap, forming the shape of a hand-held fan.
Cold weather conditions in early 2021 slowed the record-breaking strawberry’s ripening process, allowing it to continue gaining weight, Ariel added.
This kind of strawberry, called Ilan, tends to grow large, and temperature highly affects its growth, said Dai. The fruit is heaviest in the winter, and can weigh up to 60 grams, he added.
The giant strawberry was found a year ago and kept in a freezer until now, when the record was confirmed, Ariel said.
The previous record was held by a Japanese farmer who discovered a strawberry weighing 250 grams in his harvest in 2015.
(Reuters)
