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| World Records |
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| Current Sunflower World Records: Tallest plant: 25 ft. 5 ½ in. (7.76m) tall grown by M Heijms in Oirschot, Netherlands in 1986. Largest head: 32 ¼ in. (82 cm) diameter grown by Emily Martin in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada in 1983. Most flowers: 837 flowers on a single plant grown by Melvin Hemker in Saint Charles, Michigan, USA in 2001. |
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| (above right) Melvin Hemker standing next to a row of his record size sunflowers in 2001. (left below) Melvin Hemker showing his Guinness World Record award in 2002. (right below) Melvin on ladder next to his 12+ foot sunflowers. |
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| Article about Melvin Hemker's world record sunflower: |
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| (above) Melvin's sunflower garden, 2003. |
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| Previous Sunflower World Records: Tallest plant: 16 ft. 2 in. tall grown by G. E. Hooking of Kington Langley, Wiltshire, England in 1971. - listed in 1974 Guinness Book of World Records Tallest plant: 23 ft. 6 ½ in. tall grown by Frank Killand of Exeter, England in 1976. - listed in 1983 Guinness Book of World Records. |
| (above) Picture of Frank Killand with his giant sunflowers. This picture is used on the cover of Ripley's Believe It or Not Giant Sunflower package. I found a very similar picture in the 1983 Guinness book of World Records. Hopefully, Ripley's sunflowers contain the genetics from Frank Killand's sunflowers. I'm going to research this further. (left) Another picture of Frank Killand and his giant sunflowers. |
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