The World's Heaviest Carrot Looked Like An Eldritch Nightmare

In 2017, something mysterious and Lovecraftian rose out of the ground in Minnesota. It had what looked like hundreds of long tendrils snaking out into the soil, and it weighed as much as a human toddler. It was such a freak of nature that news companies across the state, and even across the world, covered its emergence. It was weird, a little frightening to behold, and orange. It was a carrot.

On September 9, Guinness World Records confirmed that a man named Christopher Qualley had grown the world's heaviest carrot. This Otsego, Minnesota, citizen proudly posed with the 22.44-pound carrot for numerous photos proving the odd vegetable's existence. The previous record holder, Peter Glazebrook from Newark, United Kingdom, grew a 20.1 lb. carrot in 2014, so Qualley had him beat by over 2 pounds.

This was no chance blessing from Cthulhu, either. Qualley aimed to grow the largest recorded carrot intentionally and had taken up growing other giant produce as a hobby. In particular, he likes to grow massive tomatoes, watermelons, and pumpkins, but none of those have landed in record books yet. The Minnesotan farmer does acknowledge that he wants to grow the world's biggest pumpkin but has a long way to go. Although relatively new to the huge vegetable game, he's used knowledge passed down by other farmers on how to get their produce so gargantuan. Although the world's longest carrot is currently held by the UK's Joe Atherton, Qualley still defends the heaviest carrot record as of 2026.

Rather than just hoping for the best, farmers like Christopher Qualley pay special attention to several factors in order to get oversized produce. The reason the carrot got so big is that it developed numerous secondary roots, which grew out of one central root. The more secondary roots you get, the bigger the carrot gets, which is why it ended up looking like some kind of alien creature. However, there's nothing supernatural about it — just time, effort, and careful gardening.

Qualley knows that's not what people expect when he explains his methods. In an interview with Guinness World Records, he said, "Most people want you to tell them to dump nuclear waste on them to get them to grow so big, but it's not the case. Soil, seed, weather, and a little luck are the most important things in my book." Without quality inputs, even jumbo-sized veggies will never grow to their biggest state.

As for what became of the eldritch carrot, Qualley actually replanted it. Rather than making fancy magic carrot soup from it, the farmer returned the strange offering back from whence it came in the hopes it would go to seed so the big veg community could grow even bigger root abominations. His mother-in-law did sample it before replanting. She's the only one to take have taken a nibble, so, much like the carrot itself, how it tastes has remained mysterious.