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Cornfusion - Agritourism before Agritourism was Cool! 10-13-2025
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Get Lost - in the best possible way at Cornfusion Corn Maze!
Lisa Showvaker shares 23 years of experience in corn mazes, Christmas Trees, and agritourism. This year's Cornfusion theme "Wonderland Adventure" offers four acres of corn mazes with twists, turns, giggles and fun for all ages.
https://www.hayrides.com/cornfusion#google_vignette
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Audio file
RCP Podcast Cornfusion Total Release Date 10-13-25.mp3
Transcript
A wonderland adventure in a corn maze?
And he came out of the corn and hollered, I'm corn fused.
And that's actually how corn fusion got its name.
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Today, as always, we have a fun and interesting guest, Lisa Schovaker from Corn Fusion.
Corn Fusion is more than a corn maze.
It kind of grew into that name.
It's more of an event now than just a corn maze.
We started out adding some fall activities to supplement our Christmas tree farm.
And the actual name of the corn maze was Corn Fusion.
But now that it encompasses 40 plus activities,
Confusion is the name of the event as well.
So if you're starting in June to open in September, it takes more time
to prep than it does to enjoy.
I thought, oh my goodness, okay.
We're just north of Manchester, Maryland.
We have about 50 acres here that we farm.
If there's seven weeks of Corn
there's 365 days of other type of work that happens.
in November, and then by the last week in November, we're heavy into the Christmas season.
There's maintenance that happens for Christmas trees all year long.
They just don't create that beautiful shape by themselves, or do they?
There's a lot more work involved.
Between mowing, there's pesticide.
We get to take care of pests on the farm, including weeds.
They need to be sheared, trimmed each season.
It's a constant on the Christmas trees.
I don't think we ever get done trimming them.
And I would assume the Christmas trees are the same.
Yes, they start growing early spring as when they break bud.
And we start replacing any trees that were cut over the wintertime by planting new trees.
Christmas and then we'll go back to corn.
The Christmas trees, they're not just a one-year grow.
How many years until a Christmas tree is actually harvested?
We plan for about seven years into the future.
Some we can rotate at about the five-year mark.
Some are a little bit longer, maybe eight or nine years.
But 7 is pretty much the average.
If you're a farmer, you normally plant your crop and then you harvest that crop within the year.
And this is a seven-year growth.
Are there trends in Christmas trees?
We see that it stays pretty steady with the Fraser fir and the Douglas fir.
They tend to be the most popular.
All of our pre-cut trees are trees that we grew, so everything comes off of this farm.
We can come to the farm and we can harvest the Christmas tree.
We go out, we pick it, we cut it.
I'm assuming somebody can help us cut it if we need help.
In the fields, the customers are expected to cut their own.
If we do need to offer assistance, we try to do that during the week when we're not too busy.
And if it's a tree that's grown for seven to 10 years, that's probably about 10 inches around.
What happens with those stumps, or do you plant beside them?
They're usually not quite 10 inches around.
It more likely be around six or seven inches.
If it's 10, then we've left it get a little bit too full.
It grew out rather than out at that point.
But to answer your question, we try
to plant beside the existing stumps.
Eventually they do start to rot up and they go away.
Yeah, occasionally there's a stump in the way and they'll dig it out, but they try to go beside it.
You answered a question that I have had in the back of my mind for years.
What happens to the Christmas tree stumps?
How many years had you been doing the Christmas trees before going into fall agriculture?
We planted our first Christmas trees in 1985.
Because you have a phenomenal corn maze that isn't like anything else around.
It grew into what it is today.
Our first year opening for fall was just a path cut through some corn.
So yeah, I went from probably 6 activities to the over 40 that it is today.
How many acres does the maze itself cover?
The corn fusion maze is just under 4 acres, and that grew as well too.
Our first mazes were in a smaller area, and it was just under 3 acres.
Growing up as a Midwest farmer and seeing so many corn fields, I have to ask this question.
And I bet there's a farmer out there in our listening audience.
What kind of corn are you using to make the maize?
I don't know the answer to that question.
It's a big corn, it's not sweet corn, but I don't know the variety or the strain or the seed source.
Sweet corn is usually a little shorter and field corn is almost sometimes 6 to 8 feet tall.
I think the tallest corn we ever had was 11.
I think this year it's probably coming in at around between 8:00 and 9:00.
It's definitely over everybody's head.
There's nobody that can see you on top of it.
That is definitely going to be something to see.
If you've never seen a big cornfield, you got to go see this.
What's the biggest challenge in creating a maze?
Every year you do this and every year you've gotten more and better.
Well, there's a few challenges as far as
is the setup of it, it's the timing.
Once that corn starts to grow, it grows fast.
There's games that we've actually put inside of the corn.
We have the orientation rooms, as we call them.
They're actually tents that are set up to show the customers how the game in the maze
We have to run power into the maze, audio, so all that wiring needs to be laid down.
There's a snack-shack inside of the maze that needs to be cleaned up, set up.
There's port-a-pots inside the maze, so they need to be brought in.
difficult to do any of this setup.
So are the paths created with the maze in mind, or are they access paths?
access paths become that speed exit then.
I think I might use one of those.
And one of the things when I moved to Maryland, people said, oh, you need to go to the corn maze.
And I thought to myself, why are we going to go get lost in a cornfield?
I was always told not to do that.
You wouldn't be alone going out the speed exit.
I would probably venture that about half
half of our guests actually use the speed X that they don't complete the entire maze.
I would feel one to two hours.
One to two hours to get through the maze.
And when you said the snack tent inside the maze, that would definitely help.
I would be like the mouse going for the snack tent.
The technology behind this and the thought behind this.
And usually we have our team decided in January.
We do have a company that we work with who will
This year is Wonderland Adventure, which is kind of based on Alice in Wonderland.
So they'll draw up a picture of where the paths would be in the maze once we transfer it.
When it gets a little closer after the corn's planted, then we'll have a guy come out.
He'll walk along the corn maze that's not
And we marked behind them with spray paint on the ground.
And that's how we marked the original paths of the maze.
Okay, I'm just, you just totally blew me away.
And I'm so in awe, my jaw is dropping.
So there's someone, okay, I guess I don't know how I thought this would happen.
Maybe I thought that the aliens would come and make the mazes in there.
There's actually someone who's walking through the cornfield and you're walking behind them.
Well, we weren't always that smart.
Our first one, we didn't know that you take out the corn when it's as small as it can be.
We waited till it was over 8 foot.
And that's actually how corn fusion got its name.
My brother-in-law was helping us, and he was in there
And he came out of the corn and hollered, I'm corn fused.
I can see that happening in my own world.
When we come back, full agritourism and Christmas trees, more about them.
Welcome back to Raising Connections.
We definitely didn't have that knowledge the first year we did it.
What gave you the tenacity to do the second year and the third year?
It's fun to see the families come out.
So that's the part that I like.
I love the smile in your voice.
You can hear the smile in your voice when you describe it.
Joy is probably a strong word.
But at least when I'm out there sweating and hurrying and trying to get things repaired and ready.
We do this setup, like I said, we start probably in June setting up all of the games.
And we have to go game to game and make repairs because things got damaged or wore out.
And then we have to cover it up because it's June and it can't be out in the weather.
You could almost hear the people having a good time.
It was like a palpable feeling that this is going to make people happy.
It's a weird feeling and I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but that's what it's like.
It sounds like the anticipation of families enjoying each other.
It's a handmade gift that you're sharing with those clients.
And I hear that in your voice.
This is a true family adventure.
Tell us about those games that get the families working together.
We do try to have something for all ages.
You know, we have little playground activities for the young ones.
You may have seen them at some other farms, the corn pits and that kind of thing.
The little ones like that, the probably six-year-old to 10, 12-year-old,
The older teenagers tend to like pedal cars and the maze.
It's always a hit with the mid-teenagers.
And then we try to do something for the parents as well.
The shooting gallery is always a hit, especially for the guys.
They always like to blast apples or shoot paintballs.
So we try to keep it pretty rounded out so that everybody in the family has a good time.
It's not you're going to be sitting and walking through and taking a nice tour in the country.
It's an active day and it's meant to be a joy.
It's meant to be full of active and joy.
It definitely is an active day.
How many different mazes are there?
Is there just one or are there multiples?
We have the main corn fusion maze and then we have what we call a mini maze.
There's actually a little game involved with that one.
And the mini maze is probably 1/2 acre at the most.
As much as you can hear the joy that's to come,
they're anticipating you being there for them.
Is the flashlight maze and the minor maze the same thing?
No, the minor maze is actually straw bales that are configured.
Oh my gosh, going through the corn maze at night.
Oh my heavens, that would be something else because things look
different at night than they do at day.
That would, yeah, that just, I had never thought about that.
I was thinking broad daylight.
That would be a whole level of difficulty.
You kind of lose your sense of direction at night.
For our team that works here, we tell them you have to use some of your other senses at night.
But when you can't see out at night, you lose that perspective that you have in the daytime.
If we're planning to come out, how long should we plan on being there?
This does not sound like an hour-long adventure.
This sounds like a really good family day.
We generally recommend that you at least about two hours.
Otherwise, you're not going to be able to pull the little kids away from the games.
They're not going to want to leave at closing time.
No reservations are necessary.
Do we bring a blanket and set out?
Do we get our snacks in the maze and can we bring them out?
We don't restrict anything except for alcohol.
And then we have some concession stands on site as well.
So you can grab a bite to eat here, you can bring something along.
So we've got my snacks taken care of, the daylight versus the night times.
We've got all the activities going.
It sounds like a really fun time.
I understand why the anticipation of the family is coming and the laughter coming.
How many years have you been doing corn fusion?
That's a lot of time to be running.
How did the idea for a corn maze come when the farm's focus was Christmas trees?
We talked a lot about Christmas trees in the beginning.
How did the corn maze come into your mind to do this?
Was this your husband going, let's plant Christmas trees and now we're going to plant corn?
Those are some famous last words.
We actually attended a Christmas tree meeting.
I think it was Pennsylvania Christmas tree growers.
They have an annual summer meeting of all the different growers can attend it.
And that's what kind of planted the seed, so to speak.
But it kind of grew into its own entity now.
My guess is you're not planting corn in June.
You're probably planting corn a little bit before that.
So in that May, June time frame, getting ready, June starts the hard activities for the fall.
How many years in advance are you planning?
So for example, are you planning next year now or are you planning two years from now?
We definitely do have thoughts for next year because as things don't function
function properly this season, we're making notes, so we need to take care of that for next season.
The maze theme will probably pick in January.
Farms are a business, and agritourism in our modern time this year, 2025,
Agritourism is a word that has become often used.
What sort of obstacles did you run into getting going?
I'm thinking insurance and where to park people.
There were the two that came to my mind right away when you said it, because you're right.
In 2002, it may have been a word in parts of the United States, but really,
really not here in Maryland yet, at least not that I heard it.
Can we get insurance on these activities?
Parking has been a challenge over the years.
We were lucky that about eight years ago, we
That would be a challenge do you often have the
the same staff that comes back year over year.
A lot of our staff is students.
We have a few very loyal staff.
Some have been with me since day one.
Others have been here 15 years plus and keep coming back.
We had a great return of students that came back.
So even though we still had to hire 15 or 20 people, we had
at least that many returning as well.
So that made hiring a little bit less stressful this year.
It seems like a pretty darn intense 7 weeks.
But when you think about life on a farm, harvest season is a pretty darn intense time.
And September to, I would think, December 24th would be a time that's really busy on the place.
Fortunately, for the fall, it starts a little slower.
The first two or three weekends are a little bit quieter.
But now that October has hit, it'll be much busier.
And Christmas tree season starts hot.
We don't ease into Christmas like we do with the fall.
As soon as the doors open, it's like the light switch is turned on and it's busy right away.
So again, back to the challenges of the staff.
For Christmas, the staff has to be ready to go from the first hour.
We've been doing it enough years.
I think we're starting to get a pretty good pattern now.
After 23 years, you could probably teach people a few things.
Because you were in on the very beginning of agritourism and agricultural changeover.
And my hat's off to your husband going, let's plant Christmas trees.
Corn fusion here is where it came from.
Our address is 2020 Garrett Road, and it's a Manchester, Maryland address.
So actually it's north of Manchester, about three to five miles north of Manchester, Maryland.
It kind of weaves along the PA Maryland line.
We'll bring your mother along.
Oh, she might have a good time.
If there's snacks involved, we'll definitely be there.
Maybe I'll bring mom and we'll have a good time.
We'll go through the maze together.
I appreciate you taking the time out from this busy time to come and talk with us.
And I'm hoping we're going to see you there and we get to be some of your good memories.
I would love to meet you in person.
And introduce yourself if you do come by.
You just got to come and find them.
And I am so impressed because in 2002, we had not started the radio program.
And we did an early program on agritourism.
And we got a lot of calls about why would anybody ever do that?
And I thought, you have never tried to make bills on a farm.
And yeah, there's a lot of things you'll do that you didn't think you'd ever do.
Yeah, and to make it successful and year over year and to have the
If we want to find you, is there a website that we can find you at?
We'll be coming to look for you.
We'll make some connections there in the maze.
We'll make some more connections.
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