An eight year-old schoolboy has gone within a lazy few kilos of taking out this year's Royal Queensland Show Giant Pumpkin Competition.
Budding Bowenville horticulturalist Jimmy Finch managed to grow a 171kg monster on his first attempt at the feat after being given the seeds by his teacher last September.
Although his entry was pipped by 2015 record holder Geoff Frohloff's 196kg effort in the Heaviest Pumpkin of Show title, Jimmy's gourd easily smashed the competition's youth record of 64kg.
He says he only expected to grow a pumpkin about the same size as the ones he's seen in the supermarket.
"I watered it, put fertiliser on it and I sang to it," he said on Saturday.
Mr Frohloff's near 200kg vegetable was a way short of his 261.5kg best but enough to collect $1050 in prize money.
"I used a lot of fertiliser and mulch, plus during the hot weather I watered the pumpkins every day - some days they received 1000 litres of water," he said.
The veteran grower's son, Tony, took out second and third place in the open class with 174kg and 171.5kg pumpkins.
The giant pumpkin competition is one of the Ekka's most iconic agricultural competitions, dating back to the first show in 1876.
