New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
CRAFTING A CORN MAZE
LLyman Orchards has been growing corn mazes for over 20 years, each time hoping that the guests who explore them learn something new. Early each year, the farm’s staff comes up with a theme for the corn maze and tries to finalize it by late March or early April, according to Lyman Orchards Executive Vice President John Lyman. This year, the maze is designed to look like Benjamin Franklin, in celebration of the 270th anniversary of the founding father conducting his electric kite experiment. Lyman said the farm likes to base its mazes on topics like history, sports and entertainment. In the past, mazes have been based on presidents, the Statue of Liberty, “Dancing with the Stars,” the New York Yankees and Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic. Lyman also said he has noticed an increased interest in Franklin this year with both PBS and Apple TV releasing the documentary film “Benjamin Franklin” by Ken Burns.
“We always look at our mazes as a way to teach our guests something they don’t know,” Lyman said. “We felt like this was a good time to introduce America to Ben Franklin, who is quite an important person in the formation of our country, and just the kind of individual I think we all inspire to be.”
The orchard has used the same field for each of its mazes since it started making them in 2000, according to Lyman. In order to create the mazes, Lyman Orchards’ farmers plant the corn crop in early May that will end up being shaped into the labyrinth. It’s one of several corn mazes in Connecticut that go up each fall.
Lyman Orchards partners with maze design company The MAiZE, which also helps create Lyman’s sunflower maze. The MAiZE begins to cut the corn once it has grown anywhere from 6 to 12 inches tall.
“They come in with a crew of about four and literally will cut both mazes within around three to four hours,” Lyman said.
In order to prepare to cut the mazes, The MAiZE designs the labyrinth on a computer — based on the idea that Lyman Orchards gives them — in a grid pattern of lines that match up to the rows of corn, as well as the size and dimensions of the field. To determine where to cut, there are points set up throughout the maze which the employees, who have printouts of the maze, carve their way to by hand. Marketing Director Kamille Combs described the process as similar to playing a game of “dot to dot” or “solving the maze on the back of a cereal box.”
“We match up our spots on the grid to spots on the field and just carve the pattern right into the field,” Combs said. “There [are] no tractors or drones.”
In order to make sure they don’t make any mistakes, The MAiZE employees keep track of the pathways they cut by marking them off on a grid paper that details the maze. A farmer owner will sometimes take photos from above — using a drone or something similar — to let The MAiZE know if there is anything that needs to be corrected. Over the years Lyman said the corrections have been “few and far between” and that this year nothing had to be redone.
“The first year when we were working with them in 2000, they were so quick that I thought there was no way they did what they said they were going to do,” Lyman said. “At that time we were renting a plane, because drones didn’t exist in 2000 [to take pictures.] When we got the pictures back I had a call from our marketing person who got them first. She paused and I thought ‘Uh-oh what is it, it has to be bad news’ and she said ‘They’re unbelievable.’ ”
Combs said that the process has remained mostly the same for the past 27 years; however, over time The MAiZE has been able to speed up the time they get the mazes done considerably as they gain more experience.
“Whereas the very first maze took us three weeks to cut out, now we are at the point where we can cut out multiple mazes in a day,” Combs said. “Practice makes perfect.”
The MAiZE crew is based in Utah, but is on the road during the whole summer to cut mazes across the United States and Canada. Combs said the crew has become like a family, made of people from farming backgrounds who learn from each other.
“These farmers are, for the most part, people who are just trying to hold onto their farming heritage and small family farms. It’s very difficult to do that with traditional agriculture, so agritourism has become a way to make a living on the farm still,” Combs said.
After the approximately 4-acre maze is cut, bridges, that guests can walk on to get a full view of the labyrinth, are installed. In early August, Lyman’s staff goes inside the maze to make sure the paths are clean-cut and the ground is smooth. The employees then put netting on both sides of the path throughout the entire maze, which Lyman said takes four people to do for around 40 hours a week for around a month.
Then the farm opens the maze to the public; this year, it is running through Nov. 6.
The drought in Connecticut has made the height of the corn maze shorter this year than in previous ones, but Lyman said that it will still tower above guests. Lyman explained that even though the drought has been challenging, irrigation and showers in August were enough to take the more “extreme effects” off. Lyman also said the farm has a good and sweet apple crop this year, but the apples have been a little smaller.
The maze spans around one mile, has hundreds of “decision points” and takes approximately 30 to 40 minutes to complete. Guests are given a “Corn Maze Passport” that has 10 trivia questions related to Franklin, which if answered correctly, will help guide explorers through the crossroad stations of the maze. There are also “Corn Cops” (Lyman Orchards employees) placed throughout the maze to ensure no one stays lost for long.
The corn plant that the maze is created from is known as field corn or “cow corn,” which is very dry, not sweet and juicy like the corn humans are used to eating. In the past, after the season is over, the orchard allowed a local dairy farmer to harvest the ears of corn in the mazes to feed to their cattle, but that farmer has since gone out of business. In more recent years, after the season, ends Lyman Orchards’ farmers have removed the netting and bridges in the maze, before harrowing the corn into the ground to be used as organic matter to build the soil.
Lyman Orchards has also been using the maze as a way to fight cancer by donating a dollar of every corn maze ticket sold to the American Cancer Society, as well as 50 cents to the Connecticut Cancer Foundation. Tickets cost $10 for adults, $6 for children 4 to 12 and are free for those younger than 3.
“[We have been working with] the American Cancer Society since 2000 and have now raised over $800,000 [for them]. For the Connecticut Cancer Foundation, with a couple of years under our belt we are in the $40,000 range,” Lyman said.
“WE ALWAYS LOOK AT OUR MAZES AS A WAY TO TEACH OUR GUESTS SOMETHING THEY DON’T KNOW.”