Titanic turnip earns Quebec gardener a world record

Gaspé gardener Damien Allard is officially a Guinness World Record holder for the 29-kilogram turnip he unearthed in November. 

Weighing roughly as much as an adult husky or a 65-inch television, the turnip crushed the previous record of 17.7 kilograms set in 2004.

Allard and his wife received confirmation from the Guinness World Records management team on Wednesday morning.

Allard, a cabinetmaker by profession who lives in Carleton-sur-Mer, Que., unveiled the turnip on Nov. 2 at its official weigh-in.

It had a circumference of 138 centimetres, a height of 35 centimetres and a width of 46 centimetres.

"There are eight billion of us on Earth. I'm the only one who managed to make a big turnip like that," he said at the time. "It's a bit exceptional."

According to the Guinness World Records website, Allard has had his eye on this particular title since 2016, when he dug up a seven-kilogram turnip and decided to check the world record.

From there, he got to work. He nearly broke the existing record in 2018 with a 15.5-kilogram turnip, but fell about two kilograms shy of a win. 

In 2020, officials and journalists attended Allard's November harvest to verify his latest contender's weight and size

Allard actually broke the previous record with a total of three turnips, the Guinness site said, with the other two turnips weighing in at 22.9 and 24.4 kilograms. 

"I am very, very happy," Allard told Radio-Canada in November.

"It's been two years that I have been working quite intensely on my turnips. I suspected very strongly that this year was the right one, but I never thought I would have been more than 10 kilos above the old record."