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Lebanese farmer Khalil Semhat holds a giant potato in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on December 6, 2008. The farmer couldn't believe his peeled eyes when he discovered he had grown a massive potato weighing 11.3 kilos (24.9 pounds), he said, adding that he now hopes to enter the Guinness World Records book.On Tuesday, the BBC decried the end of the 10-year reign of the eight-pound Manx Potato as the world's heaviest. Its record had apparently been uprooted by a 25-pound spud from Lebanon. In photos, circulated across the Internet, farmer Khalil Semhat hoists his misshapen tuber up like a proud father.
"I didn't use any chemicals at all," Semhat proclaimed to Agence France-Presse. "I've been working the land since I was a boy, and it's the first time I've seen anything like it."
The Manx's owner, Nigel Kermode of the Isle of Man, reluctantly conceded the crown: "We're still a world champion – we'll call it the second biggest potato in the world." His decade-old tater was reportedly "grey and brown" and hadn't been on display for quite a while.
But experts contacted by Scientific American say that Kermode has nothing to concede. This is all a case of mistaken identity. Michigan State University potato expert David Douches says the vegetable in Semhat's hands looks an awful lot like a sweet potato – a crop more closely related to morning glory flowers than to hash browns.
To settle the matter, we decided to talk to Kenneth Pecota, a plant breeder who has spent 15 years working on roots as part of North Carolina State University's (NCSU) Potato and Sweetpotato Breeding and Genetics Program.
