A whopping feijoa weighing nearly half a kilogram has been plucked from a tree in a Waikato backyard.
Kihikihi’s Chevon Hunapo-Love believes she may have grown the heaviest feijoa on record, weighing 441g - almost the same weight as a block of butter.
A feijoa expert says he has never seen one this big in his life and can’t believe the fruit has not been grown by a professional.
The freakish giant specimen is nearly nine times larger than an average-sized feijoa.
Hunapo-Love told the Herald it was larger than any of the grapefruit that grows next to her feijoa tree.
The Waikato woman said the trees at her Kihikihi home often produced larger feijoas but nothing this size.
“I was really shocked to see the size of the feijoas, I had to take a video of it while they were still growing in the tree.
“My husband and I kept checking on them each day to see when they would fall,” Hunapo-Love said.
“We saw there were a few big ones growing and weighed the ones we thought were the biggest, then this one finally dropped this morning and we couldn’t believe how much it weighed.”
She planted the tree five years ago when she moved onto the property and said she had not added anything to the soil to stimulate growth.
“Just lucky I guess,” Hunapo-Love said.
“They are usually big, but I feel like each feijoa season they get bigger and bigger.”
Hunapo-Love said the largest feijoas had slightly thicker skin, were just as sweet as their smaller counterparts and “have so much more juice”.
She has yet to cut into the monster fruit, but with the rest of the harvest had made feijoa ice cream and planned to make feijoa syrup to go with it tonight.
New Zealand Feijoa Growers’ Association president grower Roger Matthews said his fruit will often get into the 300g range, but he had never seen one this big.
He was surprised Hunapo-Love was not a professional grower and had not added anything special to her soil.
Matthews said the key to growing large produce was to regularly prune the branches to allow the birds to fly through, as they fertilise the trees.
He also said to take note of the variety of feijoas you plant and the soil you plant them in as this will impact the size of the fruit.
Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.
Kiwifruit growers' enthusiasm for a terrific fruit-producing season has been tempered.