Woman Shows Off Five-Pound Monster Mango
By KARIN STANTON
Tue Mar 14, 7:29 AM ET
When Colleen Porter took her mango to the local grocer, it wasn't to sell it, but to weigh it and show it off. Colleen Porter, already a state mango record holder, has been confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records as growing the world's heaviest mango — 5 pounds, 7 ounces. The monster mango appears to be close to the size of a human head.
Porter, 47, a skin care specialist at Kona Center of Facial Surgery, has a certificate from Guinness to prove the record. She's framed it — in mango wood, of course.
Virginia Easton-Smith, West Hawaii agricultural extension agent for the University of Hawaii, who helped with the submission to Guinness, confirms the record. The fruit had to be weighed and documented two separate times by three people. Independent witnesses verified six weighings.
Porter, who tends a small avocado and mango orchard, also stopped by several local grocery stores to check out her mango on their scales. The record-breaking fruit is a Keitt mango, which typically reach two to three pounds.
"All the people I showed it to at Safeway and Sack 'n' Save were just amazed," she said.
Easton-Smith said the Big Island already is noted for producing the world's biggest jackfruit, but having the world's most massive mango is something special.
"We think it's very cool," she said.
Porter said she has been told a photograph of her mango is a "strong contender" to be included in Guinness's next edition, which goes on sale Jan. 1, 2007. The mango record is not found on the Guinness Web site, which includes only a selection of its 40,000 records. |
