Another Lebanese miracle

Giant potato found on Lebanese farm

A farmer from near the Lebanese port of Tyre couldn't believe his eyes when he discovered he had grown a prize-winning potato on his land, he told newswire AFP on Saturday, saying he was hoping to enter the Guinness World Records.

In September, a woman working in a restaurant in Tyre claimed to have found 26 pearls inside a single oyster. She too said she was going to report the find to the Guinness team.

"This giant weighs 11.3 kilos," Khalil Semhat said at his farm in the Tyre area, 85km south of Beirut.

"I've been working the land since I was a boy, and it's the first time I've seen anything like it."

Semhat, 56, said he had not done anything special to cultivate such a super-sized spud. "I didn't use any chemicals at all," he insisted, adding that he had to ask a friend to help him haul the huge tuber out of the ground.

Now he hopes the find will get a mention in the famous Guinness Book of Records, and said he will send in the details for possible inclusion next year.

He said he was "very proud" to have grown the enormous specimen on his farm, which took a pounding in 2006 during the war between Israel and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement.

Copier/paster note: we should be thankful for whoever used Uranium "dipped" missiles and shells during the war to help us achieve such a record