10/13/06 A-Maze-ing

A-maze-ing. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. It's that time of year again. Guiness World Records has confirmed the McEachren Farms corn maze in Glencoe, Ontario is the largest corn maze in the world at 23.42 acres. Dave McEachren says the maze has a firefighting theme and features the Muscular Dystrophy Canada logo - which is the charity of all firefighters. MCEACHREN: This is our third year. We've had some different themes and we got to thinking what next to do and both my wife and I are volunteer firefighters here in Glencoe and so we thought let's do a firefighter theme. It kind of relates to everyone, everyone recognizes firefighters so we thought it's something that's fairly general that people would think would be interesting. McEachren says there's a lot of work involved in growing and operating a corn maze - especially after the field design takes shape. MCEACHREN: The big thing we thought was going to be a lot of work which is the actual laying out and building of the maze but there's a tremendous amount of work to be done in the end of marketing it and building a name or business out of it and getting people out and see the maze. McEachren says the value-added income from the maze has been helping the farm get through some difficult years. MCEACHREN: When we started three years ago, 2004 is when we started, it was when times were fairly tough then, not that they've got whole lot better since but it's helped us through some tight times and it continues to do that on our farm. The way the commodity prices are which everyone knows having people going through your corn maze that sure does add some value. You feel kind of bad taking out the plants because they look so healthy growing but when it's worth as little as it is in one sense it doesn't bother you too much. McEachren says it takes about 30 to 60 minutes to get through the maze - depending on the route. Pictures of the maze are posted on the farm's web site at www.thecornmaze.ca. If you can't make to the corn maze in Canada be sure and look around your neighborhood. There are a lot of them out there. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.