A couple who thought they had uncovered the world’s largest potato have had their hopes destroyed after Guinness World Records told them it was not actually a potato.
Colin Craig-Brown and his wife Donna made the discovery last August while gardening at their farm near Hamilton in New Zealand.
After months of submitting photos and paperwork, Guinness told the couple last week that the test results were negative.
An email said: “Sadly the specimen is not a potato and is in fact a tuber — a type of gourd. For this reason we do unfortunately have to disqualify the application.”
“What can you say?” Colin replied. “We can’t say we don’t believe it, because we gave them the DNA stuff.”
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The pair began posting comical photos of the tuber on Facebook. They named it Dug, pictured it wearing a hat and even built a cart to transport it. It has become something of a local celebrity.
The record for the largest potato is 5kg, set in 2011. The Craig-Browns’ tuber weighs 7.8kg, making the disqualification all the more painful.
The couple are storing the gourd in their freezer. “I say ‘g’day’ to him every time I pull out some sausages,” Colin said. “He’s a cool character. Whenever the grandchildren come round they say, ‘Can we see Dug?’”
In an appearance on ITV’s This Morning in January, Colin said he initially thought that Dug was a white sweet potato but then decided it was too large.
Describing how he unearthed the tuber with a garden fork, Colin said: “Like an angry Viking, I thrust it into the ground and caught me a giant potato.”
