Our Corn Maze Story…

The year 2016  was the first year we used our John Deere planter to plant the corn maze. Only corn seed gets placed where we want it, so the pathways you walk in were never planted in corn. We begin with a theme and then layout our ideas on a satellite view of the field. After that we use several computer programs to draw out and manipulate our corn maze image. Once we have managed to manipulate the image to a format our planter likes the planning stage is complete. At that point we load the file into our planting tractor and the computer in the tractor tells the planter where to plant the seed. The corn that was planted into the maze pattern then grows and you can see the design we drew in the beginning from the air!

The old way…

Our maze begins as humbly as a simple corn field. But with a little creative effort and a little time at the computer screen, we have a picture that’s ready to be cut out in the corn field. Before we can use our picture, however, we must first size the image to the scale of the field. Then, it takes a few careful measurements to coordinate our picture with GPS points in the corn field and finally we have a useful design ready to be mapped out.

Once we have the initial work done we strap a GPS system on and load the design we created into a handheld computer. Then just like tracing a picture with a pencil we trace our image on the computer screen.

As the image is being traced on the screen we spray the corn path to kill the corn.

The Corn surrounding our path continues to grow and pretty soon someone flying overhead can begin to see a ‘picture’ in a corn field. -And better yet you get to have fun getting lost in a maze of corn!