Peet Joubert has won the Transvaalse Landbou-Unie’s annual Goliat van Gat Pumpkin Festival for the second time in two years.

He took the first prize of R15,000 with Howie, a 420kg behemoth, on Saturday at the Pretoria Farmers Market. 

But his proudest moment was when daughter Megan, 12, won second place overall, with her pumpkin, Tupin, weighing 200kg. So big was her squash that they removed it from the children's competition and placed her with the adults.

Megan had been watching her father's method of growing and wanted to try it herself. And she said she did it on her own without help from dad.

Tupin came from the seed of the SA biggest pumpkin record holder Bekkie, which was grown by her father. At 613kg Bekkie won last year's Livingseeds Giant Pumpkin Competition at the Walkerville Agricultural Show and took the SA record.

Megan said her friends would be very excited when they heard the news of her win.

Festival organiser Henri Combrink said he was disappointed in the number of entries this year but said the November rains had made it extremely hard for growers and many crops had died.

The union owns the rights to the entrants' seeds and sells the winning seeds for R250 for two.

The union donates all entered pumpkins to welfare organisations to feed the needy. 

Joubert is now pinning his hopes on next weeks Walkerville Agricultural Show where he will enter Wallie, which he believes may be 450kg.

But this year there would be no record breakers for him because of heavy rains.

He said many farmers had lost their produce from root rot as a result.

"I am so proud of my daughter, she did so well," he gushed.

The world record pumpkin is 1,190kg, held by German Mathias Willemijns, It was recorded at the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth in Ludwigsburg, Germany, on October 9 2016.