TENNILLE, Ga. — You might have grown sweet potatoes in your garden this year. Typically, you may get half a dozen potatoes off of one plant.
David Anderson blows that number right out of the water.
"The weather conditions were really good this year for growing potatoes," Anderson said.
UGA Extension agent Rocky Tanner is impressed by Anderson’s run for a Guinness World Record for the largest sweet potato.
“If he tells you the chicken did snuff you can look under its wings and find the can," Tanner said.
Tanner, Washington County Sheriff Joel Cochran, and many others came by to witness the plant being harvested.
“It's a great day when you can see someone potentially breaking the world record," Cochran said.
The current Guinness World record is 81 pounds for a sweet potato grown in Spain.
One Washington County Commissioner guessed they might see 140 pounds of sweet potato from the one plant!
To take care of this massive plant Anderson brought out a very special knife to start cutting.
"I found it four or five years ago. It was just a blade and I wrapped it in tape," he said.
The humble blade slashed through the vines, exposing the red skins encased in dirt. He said the task made him very tired and when Anderson finished the garden looked something akin to a bomb going off.
“Good work for you it's good exercise,” Anderson said.
The work didn't stop there. Many people gathered to watch Anderson finally harvest every single potato from the massive plant and then toss them onto a tarp.
The potential potato royalty got a police escort.
Sheriff Cochran put on his blue lights and led the caravan to Sandersville where an official scale at the B&D hardware store stood waiting for its biggest moment in decades.
"With a little luck we'll have it,” Anderson said looking at the old-fashioned scale.
Stuffed into storage containers the first batch of potatoes weighed in at about 100 pounds.
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They kept adding and adding potatoes until the last one hopped onto the scale.
In the end...
“It's about 191 and we take off five pounds when we weigh this container so there is about 186 pounds of potato,” Tanner said.
This potato harvest topped the previous Guinness record by over 100 pounds.
Anderson said he was tired after the long haul. Pretty sure he can peel off some time for a nap.
It will take six months to a year to hear back from Guinness to know if he has the official world record.
Anderson says he will donate a large portion of the spuds to his church. You'll also see him selling them on the side of the road.
He usually gets 50 cents a pound.
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