This year’s Fightin’ Texas Aggie Corn Maze is more challenging, more interactive and better-looking than ever before, according to the Texas A&M Agronomy Society.
Opening Friday, the 2018 maze will include expanded kids activities, fun facts posted throughout the maze. Plant and environmental soil sciences senior and vice president for the Texas A&M Agronomy Society, Caitlin Lakey said an informative ecology booth will also be there. The booth will allow visitors to learn about plants and wildlife.
“The whole goal of the maze is to educate Bryan-College Station and surrounding areas about agronomy … and bring more agricultural awareness to this area,” Lakey said.
According to plant and environmental soil science senior Payne Whatley, another one of the new activities this year will be a scavenger hunt throughout the maze.
This year, the maze was irrigated more efficiently, Whatley said. The new method saved water, and resulted in better looking crops. The society used flood irrigation last year, which was inefficient and low-tech, so they switched to subsurface drip irrigation, which watered the field from the ground up. “It’s really helped out our corn,” Whatley said. “This is the first year we’ve been able to do a complete corn maze. In the past we’ve had to plant some biomass to kind of fill in gaps and make it taller. But with the ability to use a subsurface drip irrigation and to be able the fertilize the irrigation this year, we probably have the best-looking corn that we’ve had the four years we’ve been open.”
Plant and environmental soil sciences senior Savanna Shelnutt said visitors can look forward to the increased challenge and educational opportunities of the this year’s maze, which officially opens Friday, Oct. 5 at 5 p.m.
“Our main goal is to be able to teach people that come there something new,” Whatley said. “We want every person to be able to leave with a fun family experience and learn something.”