Ag Geek Speak
GK Technology Inc Team Members, Jodi Boe and Sarah Lovas talk about precision agriculture, agriculture mapping, agronomy and drainage.
Ag Geek Speak
Special Episode 13.5: Creating the World's Largest Corn Maze with Matt Krueger
Matt Kruger joins us to share the fascinating story of creating the world's largest corn maze spanning 121 acres with over 20 miles of pathways using precision agriculture technology. We explore how advanced planting techniques, boundary files, and ADMS technology transformed a traditional corn maze operation into a record-breaking agricultural attraction.
• Valley Corn Maize east of East Grand Forks, MN opens August 23rd through October 19th, celebrating its 10th year of operation
• The main maze covers 121 acres with five different difficulty levels and pathways totaling over 20 miles
• Matt used ADMS software, JD Operations Center, and John Deere planting technology to create his family's corn maze instead of mowing paths.
• For the detailed 15-acre section, Matt used "crisscross" planting at 40,000 seeds per acre for thicker corn (no cheating here!)
• Converting the maze design to a highly detailed boundary file required high-resolution mapping
• The maze offers QR codes for visitors to navigate using their phones and see their location
• Additional attractions include a giant straw pyramid slide, corn boxes, a zipline, and various activities for kids and adults of all ages.
• Educational elements teach visitors about agriculture
• The corn maze is a family operation with a focus on agritainment and agricultural education
• Admission is $12.50 per person, kids <36" tall are free, with special events throughout the season
Help Matt and his family reach their goal of 10,000 visitors this fall and plan your trip at www.valleycornmaize.com or search Valley Corn Maize on social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok). You won't want to miss visiting the World's Largest Corn Maze!
https://gktechinc.com/
Welcome back to Ag Geek Speak. We are really excited about this episode. We have a very special guest and a long-time ADMS software user, Matthew Kruger. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Matt Krueger:Thank you for having me.
Sarah:And we are going to talk about something that is extremely fun. Matt has done something really cool. He has made a gargantuan corn maze and, honestly, we helped him a little bit with drawing the corn maze, but at the same time, he did a lot on his own, and that is going to be the topic of our conversation today. But first, just to get things even started, let's, because this is going to be open to the public this fall. Is that correct?
Matt Krueger:so you can go through this. Yeah, we open August 23rd and then we're open all the way through October, October 19th, and we're just due, uh, Saturdays and Sundays there's one weekend somewhere October. We're open Thursday and Friday as well for MEA.
Sarah:We are super excited, so is there any place where where people can go and find out information on? Do you have? Is it Valley Corn Maize?
Matt Krueger:yep, yes, we have website, facebook, instagram, even the good old tiki-taki thing, you know. So all those to search Valley Corn Maize, and maze is spelled m-a-i-z-e. But if you do like search Valley Corn Maze and spell it m-a-Z-E, but if you do like search Valley Corn Maze, it's spelled M-A-Z-E. I bought the domain for that too, and so it'll route you to the right spot.
Sarah:So that's good. We'll get that information from you for all of the social media for this that people can actually go in and find this, because people can go through this. This is like a great all time activity. But let's back up. How big is this maze? This thing is huge.
Matt Krueger:Yeah, so the maze this year. So normally this is our 10th year at Valley Corn Maize, so normally it's been the last couple of years. 15 acres, and I had this desire a few years ago like we own the whole field, like we should just make the whole thing at Corn Maze one day and so. But I feel like, sarah, we have to give you credit for last year because you were a double butt off on trying to make it happen last year so hard, and like we, both between you and I, we were up like trying to make this work happen we're good, john Deere and eventually got to a point like I have to plant the corn, like it's June is here and I have to plant it. So we just we pulled up and pulled a plug on it last year and then this year it went so much easier after we flew in some tips and tricks from our infamous Kelly Sharp, so but yeah, so it's 121 acres, got five different levels in it.
Matt Krueger:The shortest one is 17 hour feet long, so I'd be 0.32 miles, and then the longest maze or the longest level is 2.4 miles. So and that's, if you're going like on the route of the shortest way, like you can get lost and it might take you longer than that. So so, anyway, so like. And if you go on all the pathways on the right trail to get like, in and out without being stopped or anything, it's over seven miles of pathways that you walk. Well, the corn maze as a whole has a total of 20 miles of pathways out there Over 20 miles.
Sarah:So it's a good workout.
Matt Krueger:It is, it's great.
Jodi:Okay, that's amazing.
Matt Krueger:It is amazing.
Sarah:As a lover of puns, I appreciate that so much so, okay, this is a precision agriculture podcast, so let's talk for a second about the mechanics, just just a little bit. You don't have to share all of your, all of your tips and tricks and your proprietary stuff that makes Valley Corn Maize tick. But I mean, this was like a big deal. You came up with a design, um, and when I look at this, there's like a smaller, like more detailed um maze. How is that? How big is that maze?
Matt Krueger:yeah, so that one's a 15 acres. So that's our like that one always have different themes. This year it's superheroes, so we got different superhero type things out there, um, and yeah, so that's that's kind of super detailed. Um, you know, there's a lot more. The pathways are closer together, a little more twists and turns, that kind of thing, you know. So, yeah, that's 15 acres.
Matt Krueger:We should go back and talk about the technology side of things, so that one, when I we got this file to work within john deere, um, I believe it's the first corn maze john deere's ever really planted fully with its software, for sure, at least of this size, and I know they had doubts too of, like, we think it can do this but we're not sure, and shout out to Maddie I think was her name at John Deere operations center for fixing my.
Matt Krueger:You know, we we kind of go through two different third-party softwares to get this thing to work, basically, but we got it to work and um, yeah, so that maze we also crisscross plant, just because then you don't have the rows potentially cheat on um, and it makes it a lot more thick. Basically, we're on 22 inch row, spacing up here as well. Like I said, I'm from, like Valley Corn Maize is located in East Grand Forks. I farm East Grand Forks with my dad and brother, and so we are in 22 inch country for row spacing. I would love to be in 30s, to be totally honest, and we don't even have sugar beets, but the equipment's worth more at 22 inch than 30 inch, so we just we're on 22s.
Sarah:There's a bunch on 22 inch rows and it is totally like a Red River Valley sugar beet spacing and because that's just the culture of the sugar beet industry, a lot of other people end up staying in that row spacing for that reason, up in this neck of the woods, that's such an interesting economic story it's like it should be its own story about.
Jodi:like resale value of 22 inch equipment versus 30 inch equipment in the valley. That's cool.
Matt Krueger:Yeah, which I mean. I actually like I look at people that buy like 24 row 30 inch planters and like outside the valley you can Well, I guess you can buy those in the valley cheap. But I mean 30 inch equipment in general is just cheaper. Like a 30 inch 12 row chopping header is cheaper than a 22 inch 12 row chopping board header. You know so it doesn't make sense because the 30 inch has more metal on it, but yeah, and question so you say you crisscross plant.
Jodi:So I assume like do you diamond plant? How does your crisscross?
Matt Krueger:work. Yep, so like I, I planted the whole like, so the whole thing. I planted east and west and then when I was done I went back to that area, I reset my coverage map and I just planted that area again. I went north and south and christmas planted and that area I planted at 20 000 twice, so I get 40 000 total, which is really thick for corn. I mean generally corn up here we plant at like 32, 34 000 and the rest of the maze I planted at 32 000.
Matt Krueger:So I was, and I was like I almost wrote a script to put a prescription map behind the planter map as well, because I was just toggling it manually to like, okay, I'm in the small maze, I hit a button to go 20 000 and then I go back to the big maze, I hit the button to go back to 30 000. I didn't and there's only one spot I messed up. But, um, because I thought too like I might overload this poor computer on this planter and make it really angry, so like we're just not going to push our luck on that, you know. So.
Sarah:Let's see if we could do that. So, in other words, okay, the way I'm just going to try to back up here and Matt help me if I'm not, because I was sort of participating and helping set this up a little bit Kelly Sharp, just so everybody knows, is actually the one who made the magic work happen here in the background, along with Maddie at John Deere. Okay, so the 15-acre small maze is very detailed, there's lots and there's actually schools in here and there's curves, and so what Matt did is he came up with this maze as a picture. We brought this picture in and we geo-referenced it across the field. But then we had to make the resolution on that picture work so that we could get the detail into the picture and the lines being very finite, otherwise it ends up looking pixelated and you wouldn't actually be able to make out what the images are in the field. And so we worked with the resolutions on an ADMS software to geo reference this whole thing. Then in the process, this got actually turned into a boundary file. Is that correct?
Matt Krueger:Yep, correct. So we turned the yeah, so ADMS was able to take that image after it geo-referenced it. We had to keep the quality really, really high, so we actually had to go into ADMS's code, basically override some default things, because ADMS typically lets you get down to one meter resolution. That's typically more than adequate for what people need and things. But this maze image we had to go down to a quarter meter just to get the thing to like look as good as we can be. The other thing with that, though, with that quarter meter, we had a bazillion points of data, which john deere nor adms likes that necessarily. So then we had to like make it really detailed, turn it into a boundary file, and then we had to go back and like remove the points, because I mean a lot of like there's detail, but some of the lines can be simple snap lines, basically two or three points. So we kind of had to play with that for a while as well. And, um, yeah, so we turn it into a boundary file and then but the issue with the corn maze is it's basically they're circles without really endpoints, is the issue, and adms is fine with it. However, john deere does not like that and so it would start making random endpoints and throw things off. So maddie at john deere then took the shape file and she had to basically splice all the shapes randomly just to make them like actually have endpoints. So that way they would are not spliced, be cut basically, but cut them so then that way they actually had true endpoints and then the monitor could actually read it. Not really like their, their way, that their theory of operation is is, then it works with their theory of operation, like how the program is written to handle those shape files. So that's kind of what we had to do.
Matt Krueger:My concern a little bit was like those lines, because you'd see them on the screen and whatnot and even the map that I loaded into the planter I was worried like again, like, and 80ms does this now too really well, but like when you cut a line, like are you actually getting that line on top of each other so like there's not a little gap there that the plant is going to drop a seed? And she did a great job on actually like doing what 80ms does and splicing it and like the line is right there. There's no way for that planter to actually think like, oh, for a split second I have to turn on and turn back off. Um, there's, into the equipment we used. We have a john deere exact merch planter, so that gives us also the best the seed on off rate, like we don't worry about seed drop. That seed is inches from the ground, you know.
Matt Krueger:So when that planter called for the seed to turn on, boom, it started planting right away. When the planter said stop, it stopped right away. So, and that was pretty much his concern, is that start stop time frame, like are we gonna have any zigzags with the boundaries? And we had like very, very little bit, like I mean nothing, something that like I would notice, sarah jody, we probably see is like you know, like we know what we can see, like those imperfections, but for corn maze attendee and the aerial shots, you're never going to notice it so, but even from the aerial map that I'm looking at now, did you go in already and like clean up some of those imperfections that you haven't cleaned this up at all?
Matt Krueger:no, we didn't have to clean it up at all. Like it planted amazing, like super crisp it was just. I mean it was awesome it because it's.
Sarah:I mean, it is impressive how the shapes and the lines and the circles it is right on, and so you must have that start and stop. And again, what you're basically saying is that the delay between when the seed drops and when it lands in the actual furrow is very small.
Matt Krueger:Yeah, I think like John Jarrah has a setup like 50 hundredths of a second or 0.15 of a second, so I mean it's very, very minute, you know. So on a normal planter with an actual seed tube, you probably have a little more of a delay there. But again, nothing that can't be like programmed that it knows like hey, there's just this much time, you know, and it has to time that that accordingly that was going to be my next question.
Jodi:I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to say did you have to adjust your look ahead time at all? But it sounds like with the way that your planter is set up, the seed is so stored closer to the ground so you don't have that seed tube and that drop time you've got to account for yep, exactly am I thinking about that right?
Matt Krueger:yep, and like the look at time more so deals with like prescription maps. And that was one thing Deer asked me like hey, maybe next year you try this with a prescription map. But the issue with the prescription map in John Deere's world is it's not that one you can get more zigzag, because it's not like we need actual perfect lines.
Jodi:Like. So a boundary file gives that perfect line versus a prescription is going to be a little more pixelated and a little more like, not quite as crisp. So that's a really, really important distinction, because in my head the whole time I was thinking about this as a seed prescription right, where you export something out in grids and have those like columnar data. But again, as you've mentioned now I'm finally getting the picture of it You've sent a boundary file to JD Ops and used that to plant and your row shut off. You're out of boundary. When your plant is out of bounds, that's what's controlling the on-off.
Matt Krueger:Yep, exactly. So yeah, there's basically a ton of interior unpassable or the no, they're interior passable boundaries, and then the plants are new, like not to plant in those spots basically. So that's a boundary file to give us that crisp, really accurate look like we're seeing right now.
Sarah:You know that was one of the things when I've been visiting with Kelly about this, and you know you're not the first person that I've tried to help with a corn maze, it's just this is.
Matt Krueger:You definitely got most of my hours out of me last year, this year, this year, I don't think we we didn't tap you at all, so oh and well, I I think I waved the white flag and was like Kelly, make it happen.
Sarah:And I mean, this is the stuff that Kelly is just so smart with. But did you know, or? Or was it Kelly that came up with the idea about using it as a boundary?
Matt Krueger:no, that was kind of my plan from the beginning is I knew it had to be a boundary, not a prescription file, because if it was a prescription file that had been super easy. You and I could have done that in a heartbeat. But I think I think kelly agreed like it has to be a boundary file, otherwise a prescription just won't give us that. I mean, I think the big maze you could probably do prescription, because it's a lot more area there, bigger things. But the small maze you could never do that with that kind of detail. You know, and I still think you get some like zigzags with the big maze even as well as a prescription file. So for us they had to be a boundary file and, like I know, there's mazes across America that they plant with 2020 planters like those ones. It was the biggest hurdle for us was trying to get the john your operation center, because I couldn't even like put the map through. Like it has to go through operation center to get into a planter nowadays. Like you can't just lower thumb drive, stick in the planter you can, but then it's still like it can be against op center. It's gonna like basically kind of override itself to be like, hey, this isn't right, here's what it's supposed to be, so anyway. So we had to like to make sure it worked, had to put it into operation center and then from there it pulled up in the planter and it worked. Like I said, it worked out really well.
Matt Krueger:I was super, super nervous, like we didn't even want to announce this thing until, like I could see it to me, I was out there, you know, making sure, like, okay, does it actually work? You know, and like at one point I think my kids or my dad were like, uh, there's a lot of rows that just go to nowhere. I'm like, are you sure? Like yeah, I think there's just like they're dead ends. I'm like, oh man, you know, it's like I went out there like dad, no, it's right here. It's like, well, just so tight. Like I just didn't think there's a pathway there. I'm like there it is, you know.
Matt Krueger:So, like once you got the confidence and there's a very small window made that ideal picture, and even the picture I took, um that we're using for camera like motions. Everything is probably like a week later than I like it to be, but the week prior we had the wonderful canadian canadian smoke, so just so blue and hazy. Even the picture we have is still kind of hazy, but I kind of touched it up to try to emphasize it. But yeah, eventually now it gets too big where, like, there's still detail there, but the plants are just so big now it just doesn't have that quite crisp. Look to it as it did, you know, typically around that fourth of July time frame. So it's about a month old. It's big enough you can get a good nice aerial shot with the drone, but it's not too big or you're starting to leafy on it either.
Sarah:So it was, uh, it was really fun when you I think you texted an aerial photo for and sent it to Kelly and I, when it was like kind of coming up first. When I saw that, you know, when it came in a text message, so it the picture looked really small on my phone and everything and I'm like I clicked on it and I looked at it and I zoomed and I was like I don't know, did this work? I was a little bit nervous Then.
Sarah:I zoomed and I was like, I don't know, did this work? I was a little bit nervous then I zoomed.
Matt Krueger:I'm like holy buckets, this is so cool yes, I kept, I kept, I think, flying like every week till like, okay, I gotta get this aerial shot. And then we, my wife and I, we take our kids to, uh, indiana, that's where my mom's from and so we go there for vacation every summer for about a week to 10 days. And I knew I'm like my ideal time is when we were gone, so I like showed one of my guys like, hey, here's how you fly it, everything else. But then we also had a bunch of rain dumped on that time. So then, like you kind of time it where like the maze didn't look like it was saturated and so, like I said, like all right, when I get home we'll deal with it. I came home and then we had smoke so crazy. And then a few days later it finally was like okay, finally get the shot. But even like the smoke, I'm like all right, it looks amazing, you know.
Sarah:And that's why I sent the pictures off. So it turned out, it turned out so cool.
Jodi:What part of Indiana is your mom from?
Matt Krueger:Northeast Indiana.
Jodi:Like Fort Wayne north of Fort. Wayne, north of Fort Wayne, yes, Okay, cool, why north of Fort Wayne north?
Matt Krueger:of Fort Wayne. Yes, okay, cool, why, awesome, I went to Purdue. So I, oh okay, yep, yeah, my mom's side of the family they all are heavy Purdue people.
Sarah:So yes, so the range the Indiana.
Matt Krueger:How Indiana, our Sturgis Michigan, that's where they're from so okay, yeah, close to the border cool yeah.
Matt Krueger:So, like the joke was, my mom went from border town to another border town like because like there's nuances sometimes when you're on the border, like they, I mean how indiana's smaller and like sturgis would be a bigger town. Some of the stuff would be like you go more into michigan than you would indiana side of things, but like fort wayne would be like the bigger city, it'd be like us. Well, grand forks was a bad example, but like it's like far no size, basically, you know. So.
Jodi:I'm laughing because the first corn maze I was ever at was in Indiana. I'd never been to a corn maze before, but that has me thinking about where. Where did you guys start doing this? Like you said, you started doing this 10 years ago 10 years ago.
Matt Krueger:yep, so the idea came from, and Sarah will know the same too, Paul Backstrom.
Sarah:Oh really.
Matt Krueger:Really.
Sarah:Paul Back will know the same too.
Matt Krueger:Paul backstrom oh really, really he paul backstrom is a user of adms for many, many, many, many years. Yeah, so they have this thing called maddock field day or maddock days, right, and so I'm corn maze. So I actually worked for paul right out of college and so I was part of like their corn maze thing. I thought, oh, this is kind of cool, doesn't take that much, I mean. And they were mowing their maze out and so I kind of felt like this would be kind of cool to do. So I brought the idea and for us it was again trying to like provide agritainment in the area. I mean, I mean I think people think like grand forks, like there's a lot to do and there is a decent amount to do, but like it's just I don't know, there's just not as much to do as I think there could be. And so we just I came up with the idea like, hey, let's do this corn maze. I mean, and you look back at the first year's images and pictures and stuff, like our admission bin was out of a, out of a trailer, you know. Like I mean we did stuff so hokey pokey, like our little corn box was like plywood up and like all this stuff. I'm like if people paid to come to this thing back then I'm just like, oh my gosh, like I'm so sorry, you know what you like, but that's what's grand Valley Corn Maize. So, and we were actually going to start it a year earlier. Um, however, my wife and I became pregnant with our first one and he was due in september and it was like, nope, that's, that's not happening. So we delayed it a year and, like the area where we have like the activity area and stuff we had our corn maze tended to be a little like not the highest producing area of the field and so we just kind of like it wouldn't. We didn't have a huge loss in that way. I think we started out like with an eight acre maze the first year. First year two was eight acres, then we moved it to 10 acres and then we moved it to 15. Um, we've been at 15 for the last several years. For that smaller raise, we keep talking about going a little bit bigger and we might. Um, well, obviously we did this year. Um, but for who knows what next year's plans are? I know someone said like let's just do it again next year another world's largest car maze and just do the whole quarter. So we very well might, because, like part of it you like.
Matt Krueger:So my hope was to be like in the guinness book of world records because, like the current record is 66 acres, in the guinness book, there's a farm down in like stony brook, minnesota, stony meadow, somewhere down southern minnesota. They did 110 acre radius. So that's why I did 121. Uh, because I thought like well, they're going through the process, because you can backdate a guinness world record as well, apparently with enough proof and everything. However, when I inquired about it, guinness told me yeah, that's great. Uh, this you have to pay for a package. The starting package starting is twenty thousand dollars for you to get. It's like. I'm like nope, I mean, it's cool to be like that way, but I'm not spending twenty thousand dollars. Organization, that's gonna do. I just. I was just that like ruined the guinness book world records for me. I'm like is that what all this is? Is like that whole book is just full of people and are just world money to like get world records I'll definitely say, like I'm any interviews I can, I definitely point that out.
Matt Krueger:People are like that's insane. I'm like exactly it is insane. I'm hoping they somewhere hear this and go like I don't know either.
Jodi:I'm starting to change for a beer a little small corn maze, but it's like it's just ridiculous what they, what the deal is the beautiful thing, though, right it's like you have the boundary files right, like this is geo reference, it's satellite image, like the data is I'm not we've got so we can prove it if we want to, you know so. Thinking back to like 10 years ago. How were you getting your lines Like? Were you also doing prescriptions then Like, or were you cutting things out? How were you putting lines in? We?
Matt Krueger:actually did. What kind of like Paul Backstrom did is we put a GPS on our lawnmower and use one of those mobile PC units and we still had to georeference the image, and at that time I used a different system. I was super nice um. Some company bought it but it was like old mapsorg or some I don't know. Anyway, you know some website that I could georeference an image super easy, download it as a tiff file, open it up in adms, it just works. So then you just basically just follow the line to turn on um continuous quick marks and you just basically fill out the deals and so so you were doing this, like in the old soil, sampling like oh, and your af10s or af2s, wherever they are.
Matt Krueger:Yep, literally up until last year, we kept mowing it like, really kept doing it that way, so, and were you just following like a light bar, or did you have like auto steer? How are you, no, so that jody, these like sir, be able to describe it to you. But it's the old, like computers that's thing for soil sampling yeah, but they're so you're following the line like you.
Matt Krueger:You have to like be on the line then, yeah, yeah you have to be on the line like, and you kind of like I mean you you kind of like became one with the screen and we put it on zero turn and you'd see your dot. But like you also like it was sunny and say like it can be glary, and so you kind of be like I hope this worked and every once in a while I mean we know how those computers glitch everyone saw those computers are like lock up. You'd be like I didn't. My icons moved, oh of moved, oh my gosh, you know it's a quick stop and you're like am I still active or did the thing lock up? And but yeah, you just kind of be with one with the machine and know like how to turn to make the line. You know like you kind of know where to line up.
Matt Krueger:And so, yeah, it was, it was quite the deal. And again it's crisscross. You could kind of see the rows and you typically would mow high to mid shin. But if you go too early the corn free grows. You go too late, you just push on the stock. So there's a fine line and there has been times a couple years like it rained and so the corn was knee high and it kept raining, rain, raining. The stuff was also like past your head and we're out there trying to mow it down.
Matt Krueger:That was miserable I bet that was awful it was so I for a while I mowed them and then I taught my sister how to do it because I just couldn't. With farming and everything else, it couldn't always guarantee it happened, but it would be like that 15 acres would take you a good day and a half oh, I bet and it was not like you would load up on mosquito spray, I mean, I would just put earphones in and you just kind of become one with machine um story.
Matt Krueger:So one year I don't know what year this was, but one year I was mowing out there and it was getting dark and I just was like I was just kind of just tired, I was done. It was taller too, like it was miserable. I think the corner was like mid chest so it was too tall. But again, you have to get done and I just you don't back out of the maze, you just shut it off and just leave it there and then you um walk out. So I was walking out and all of a sudden, as I'm walking out of the maze area, um walking towards my vehicle, this vehicle on the highway just goes and goes crashing in the ditch. It was some high schooler kid who I don't know what was wrong, but if you like, I wish I could show like an aerial shot, but like where the maze.
Matt Krueger:That's on the corner of Highway 2. And there's like another road and another road. There's three roads, that kind of corner here, and I don't know what the kid did, but he just missed it or whatever, and he forgot to take the curve to go towards Highway 2 and just went straight and there's like this like giant, like kind of pile of dirt, that's kind of a, I think, for a person to stop someone. He just went full air ball ring and then in the ditch there is super deep, full of cattails and like the. I mean you would have not seen like it's that deep, he would never see no down there.
Matt Krueger:And so like the chance of me like walking out and seeing this and like oh my gosh, so I quit, call 911. The kid is fine. I think he was just entirely intoxicated because he like pulled himself out of the vehicle and then bobbed down. I'm just like dude, just stay down there. I couldn't even get down to it because it was just so steep, but he was fine and anyway, that was a crazy story of like a one evening at the corner you like just walked out at like just the right time like literally just walked out just the right time.
Matt Krueger:I think I had my headphones in and I also like, like on the corner of my eye I also see this vehicle like just goes airborne and also I'm like what am I just seeing all some food? And went in and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, so like. And then like, if I think, I think it must have been like year two or three, because it was early on because I called 911 and I said, like what's your address? I'm like it's on the, it's by Valley Corn Maize is at this intersection, this intersection, and the policeman like went flying by and I'm like on the phone, just like, have him turn around. It's right here, you know, and oh, aggravating, but now people know where Valley Corn Maize is generally.
Matt Krueger:So it's funny sorry, that was, we totally went way out it's a podcast.
Sarah:We do stories oh man oh, I love it.
Jodi:That's funny. Dispatch is like you just walked out of where, yeah, and you saw what.
Sarah:Oh man, You're on the phone with dispatch. You're never going to believe this, but this is true.
Matt Krueger:Yeah, oh my gosh Anyway.
Sarah:Okay, so this is going to be opening up really soon here. It's going to be available for everybody to participate in and come on out. Obviously, going through the maze's going to be available for everybody to participate in and come on out. Obviously, going through the maze is going to be good. This thing is huge. How do you keep from?
Matt Krueger:losing people in this. So we'd have a guy that develops an it's not a code in an app, but you scan a QR code. It'll pull up a web page and it pulls up the maze design and then you turn your location on it and you can see where you're at in relation to the corn maze, so, um, so we have a way for you to like at least know where you're at through the maze. Uh, we do have paper copies as well, if someone wants to do that, because we do have a game in the small maze for people to um go do. It's called mazeopoly, so it's like a little fun monopoly type game, but it's for phases and so there's that um, and also in the small maze we have two little bridges out there too that people can kind of climb up and you can kind of see a little bit over the corn um, so differently like that. But yeah, so we've got that qr code with the app that you can kind of generally see where you're at. It doesn't give you like here's the way to go. Release will help you kind of figure out, like okay, I'm here, and make you kind of go through. That way on the large maze we're having everyone, because I mean like seven miles of walking. I think people are like, oh, that's, that's fine, like this is seven miles of in the field walking and if you're in the corn, like if you've been in a cornfield, the wind goes away, it's very hot and humid, like it can be a windy day and it's actually pleasant out in corn generally.
Matt Krueger:So we have people. They have to have their phone at least 50 battery. They have they'll have a lanyard that will have this qr code that will be like you can scan this to make sure you can, you know, like get your way out. Basically, um, we have our phone number on there. I like question that because I feel like people will be these number like I lost.
Matt Krueger:It's like well, too bad. I mean, the big thing is to say it's unmanned, it's not like you can't, like there's no one out there to help you get out. Basically, you know so hopefully, at least with that app and everything and people will have someone there making sure like it works for people, or I could be like here. You know so hopefully, at least with that app and everything and people will have someone there making sure like it works for people, or I could be like here you know you do it on your own, like they have to show us like yep, okay, I can see the blue dot, I can see the map. Okay, you're fine, go out in the maze, basically. So that's how you kind of navigate both and sign the waiver.
Matt Krueger:Good luck yeah, yep, well, actually no, oh, that's a whole different thing, we have to have everyone sign waivers this year, not just because of the large maze, just that's a whole nother thing. We were going to have a waiver for the big maze, but now they made us have a waiver that everyone has to sign when they walk in. So we have another QR code. You scan it, you sign the waiver, you go in.
Sarah:So can you how many people have gone through your mazes in the?
Matt Krueger:past We've had like typically 6,000 to 7,000 people a year.
Sarah:So Excuse me, how many?
Matt Krueger:6,000 to 7,000 people, wow. So I really would like to see it be closer to 10,000 this year. That's kind of my own like internal goal. So whether it happens or not, that's you know, it doesn't really matter. So, so, and again, like the reason, going back to like why we started the corn maze, it was to it truly was to, like, educate people, people about egg like, even though grand forest of dakota is surrounded by agriculture, um, you still find people that have no idea. You know, people think the corn that they're walking through, can I eat this corn? I'm like you can, but it's not sweet corn, it's a starchy, it's field corn.
Matt Krueger:You know, years ago, I think, the only year, one, two or three, one first, or in the years I tell the story often, uh, lady was like, um, something about, oh, this must not be genetically modified corn. I said, no, it actually is. Like, well, it looks, it doesn't look any different. I said no, it looks exactly like what this is what corn looks like. Why that gmo corn looked like all different? And I said, no, it does not. This is, this is what corn looks like. Why that gmo corn looked like all different. And I said, no, it does not this is, this is genetically modified corn, you know.
Matt Krueger:So, just, differently, like that, we try to heavily have signs up that you know, have different fun facts about egg, um, and we don't just talk about corn we talk about. We talk about soybeans, we talk about wheat uh, we haven't even display out that even has sugar beet seed, from like the actual sugar beet seed that we plant to the ones that get coated. Um, and talked about like all the different things about like how sugar, like what, what's the process of a sugar bean, sugar, um, saving the corn. So we really try to tie, like our mission statement is to is about educating people about agriculture. That's one of our core things we have that we want to try to do with this whole thing.
Sarah:That is so awesome, even here in North Dakota, northern Minnesota, where people are surrounded by agriculture, but it just feels like so many people don't get the chance to ask those questions or learn, and so what a fun way to do some outreach and and have like a fun game and things to go along with it yep, absolutely, and you know a lot of this is also done like I mean, people pay admission to attend and everything like that too.
Matt Krueger:And I'm just taking this moment to like give a shout out to pioneer. It's been a premier party for us last several years. I mean their, their logos featured in this maze. They contribute financially. They get some marketing pr with it too.
Matt Krueger:But like it, it's not a like people look at this as like, oh, it's a quick, easy grab kind of a thing. It takes a ton of work, like a ton a ton of work, a ton of time, time, money to like put up structures, to put up things to do like right now the guys. Another thing like we're, we try to add something new every year and this year we're adding like two things, two or three things new. We're adding swings, just normal fun swings, and originally when we talked it was gonna be like five or six swings. No, my dad has made it's a 70 foot wide swing apparatus he's made.
Matt Krueger:And I just thought I was literally at the maze hoeing weeds because, like again, like just you have these open pathways with sunlight, so weeds like to grow in them. So I'm out there with my boys hoeing it and I walked out and I looked over at this activity area. I'm like how big is that? And dad, my sister was there. She's like oh yeah, it's 70 feet and like I thought we talked like a third of that. She's like wait, no, dad, go big or go home.
Jodi:You know, I'm like, oh my gosh, so we're in this huge swing area now too you know, guinness may make a package deal, like if you guys make the longest swing set in the world, you may be able to do like both validations at the same time for one price.
Matt Krueger:Yeah I don't know if that's a. I feel like we wouldn't have the biggest one, but you never know never know you give your dad a year it's, it's you.
Sarah:I know, zach, don't tempt him so you have other activities around the maze as well. What are some of the other activities that are there to do?
Matt Krueger:yeah.
Matt Krueger:So we have, oh man, so many things, I'm gonna miss all of them, kind of thing. But we've got um. So we got swings. Now we also put a giant. So we like put square bales of straw, we put them four levels of like a pyramid. So we call the giant straw pyramid slide. And then we got like just that beet tart plastic and it goes down and people sit on potato sacks and they just slide down that thing all day long. So, and my dad will make kind of different tunnels in there just for the kids to kind of climb through and around and whatnot. So we have, yeah, this giant pyramid slide.
Matt Krueger:We've got corn boxes. Uh, we used to have one. It's a hit, but we figure a big year. So we've got now three of them, some of our smaller. They're gonna be more for like toddler age, just because you get more of the elementary age, that thing and just gets a little crazy. So we have corn boxes. We got a little spider web, rope course. We got rat rollers which are like they're the giant tile culverts, basically on PVC pipe and you just run back and forth, you know, between there We've got a hoop and holler basketball games, got four basketballs. You can hit a button. You get 60 seconds you could beat and see who gets for the highest points. We've got giant yard games like Tic-Tac-Te for jenga. Uh, big cornhole, we've got the giant. We've got giant bubbles. We've got tetherball. We have a little beeline zipline you.
Matt Krueger:You have a, not there yeah, it's called a beeline zipline, so it's not officially a zipline, it's a beeline zipline. You sit on it and it's like I don't know 100 feet feet long and you sit on this little disc and you go down. So fun little ride. That's fun. We always try to have. We grow sunflowers on the farm and we've had one good year of growing sunflowers at the corn maze. The last several years I've just struggled with the idea that we grow them very well. So we try to have you pick flowers as well, with different colors. So we have Zinnia patches. Yeah, so we have. We have quite a few things. Jody's like making faces of, like oh my goodness, they know we have all this stuff, but yeah, we have a lot of stuff there to like do.
Matt Krueger:So we say, like you can spend a good amount of time out at the maze area in top of like you got the maze to go through, used to do as well. So we charge. It's 12.50 per person. That includes tax. Kids that are 36 inches and under are free. And or you can buy a season pass for 28 bucks and you can come all year as many times you want, you know. So I try. I mean, I try to tell people like, basically, come two times, I feel like you get your I mean it's not quite paid for, but like there's just there's so much to do, like I feel like you have to come back at least more than once.
Matt Krueger:And we do offer a thing called a bounce back pass too, where, say, you're like in town for a weekend type of thing and you don't want to do a season pass. But what you can do is actually do a bounce back, which means you pay the regular admission Before you go. You buy a pass called bounce back pass for half the price of the admission, so $6.25, and then use that any time throughout the season. So yeah, and then we've got different events throughout this year as well. So, like, opening weekend is coming up next weekend. Grandparents day, september 13th and 14th. Grandparents are free with every paid grandchild september 20th and 21st. You got your weekend. Sure, the equipment brings out equipment. Uh, we bring out some from our own farm, although I'm gonna issue this year. In years past there's been an issue of getting equipment because of that supply issue, but I think dealerships now have plenty of inventory.
Jodi:This is incredible, like I'm sorry. I just got done like putting my wedding together and that was hard enough. I can't imagine like coordinating all of that. That's insane and that's such an amazing thing to have. I'm biased because I live just west of Grand Forks, but what an amazing thing to have in the community. Yeah, I'm super excited to share this with other people and spread the word about it.
Matt Krueger:Do you have a dog. No, I have a cat. Oh, okay, okay, because like October, we're going to have a canines on the corn, you can bring your dog out, kind of thing, yeah. So I mean like if you go to our website, valley corn maize. com, you can see all the events throughout the whole year of the app going on, and like we give some flex to in terms of like, if there's a weekend that gets rained out or say one of the days does, we might extend it to the following weekend or whatnot. To hometown heroes, another huge weekend. That's about I have here who's on the list now? All law enforcement, firefighters, emfs, doctors, nurses and military personnel and veterans with service ID received pre-admission, and then we also military discount the whole season as well. So we want to just say thank you to those that serve the military and provide a little discount for them and their families that come and check out the corn base.
Sarah:That's awesome. Well, I know I'm planning on going up there. My son is now seven and this is going to be like the perfect thing for us to go and do and check out. So excited I saw we saw your news report on a local TV station, wday, which was really fun. When that was on I was actually on the phone with with my parents and they happened to be. You know, that is when you call your parents and they they're watching the six o'clock news, just like you are.
Matt Krueger:Yeah and um, and I said, oh my gosh, I've worked on that maze it's finally happening it's happening yeah, a michael scott thing with the way to answer, I think right away too, like and we we do it in our group chat as well. We're always like little gifs like that. I was just like it's happening, it's happening, you know.
Jodi:I'm. I'm so glad that precision I could help a little bit and alleviate some of the work that I was in.
Matt Krueger:It has been yeah, my sister has been like we are planting the maze forever from now on. I said absolutely, and I in the process once we had kelly kind of work on it with me, like through the process, and I recorded him doing it because I'm like we need to reference this again for how to do it and once we did it I was like I could do this easily. You know, it's not that hard of a thing. I think the hardest thing is georeferencing and trying to keep that image as like true as you can. That's hard to do because we have to use wonderful paint which you know, like you know and like make it work out.
Matt Krueger:But truly, once it was like all done and like and put together. It was like man, this is great. And I'm. The one thing I want to try to figure out with maddie and her team from john deere is like okay, what do you do? Because, like, is there a way with an adms that we can make that possible? And I think it truly is possible to do it. We just have to figure that out.
Sarah:So yeah, we're able to do so many things with boundaries. We're just kind of trying to figure out like, okay, john dear, how do you want your boundary to look when it goes, when it goes in there? And if we could just figure that out, I know we can do it yep, and we, we got the like.
Matt Krueger:Obviously we got the boundary back from john deer like, okay, this worked, so we're able. Then I sent that off to kelly and I think sarah too. Just be like here's what they needed. So that way then they kind of know like okay, this is what we got to look at for next time. Basically, you know, but I think the team at john deer they was fun because, like again, shout out to maddie because she was working on a saturday for me to help get this thing working, and she's like, hey, I'm working on Saturday, don't worry. But she's like I got this thing and then her supervisor like emailed me, I think a couple weeks later, like hey, you know, that's like internal, like like just recognition, and she's, she's he. He said like I want to put her up for it because you know, she kind of went up, up and beyond to help you out. And I said absolutely she deserves it. Anything I can, you know, help to contribute, let me know. You know, um, but yeah, so it was super cool.
Matt Krueger:I got videos. Actually I'm working on a video. It's. It's not a. I use the term reaching critical, so like I have a video I'm working on that has me with a voiceover and like how I actually did it, like a lot more detail.
Matt Krueger:Um, one of these days when I'm not busy, I want to, but it might not happen for a while, that's fine. Um, because I know like people are like, again, we farm, we're busy, but I also have five kids and so when I go home I try to go home and by the time, especially now, like the kids are out, I mean it's been cool to see as like part of the corn maze as well, like they're able to, to help out. So I mean I've got all three of my boys. They're 11, 9, 7. They're out helping hoe weeds. They're doing different things. I mean they'll probably maybe not enjoy it as much, but, you know, growing up with it, I hope they do though, in all honesty, but like for them it'll be like all the car maze, you know whatever.
Matt Krueger:But um, I know one actually said, like when can I start working at the car maze? Because, like, we pay our kids, like the kids on the farm, if they're doing a job that I'd have to have one of my employees do, like I will pay them. I'm not gonna pay them when I pay the employees because they're not doing it quite that level but they still earn money. And saying that the car maze like they're out hoeing weeds, they're doing a good job. Like, hey, you can get on the clock and get paid and like for them to see that, to learn. Like, hey, working hard not everything in life is like equates back to money, but at least you can learn that good work ethic absolutely, and I think for a lot of farm kids that are out there, that's like what an opportunity.
Sarah:And let's just call a spade a spade. Not all kids have that opportunity and I realized I just said not all kids get the chance to go and pull weeds and 20 miles of pathway. But seriously, like it does teach good work, ethic and and and it is an opportunity. So that's that's really cool and it's really neat that it can be a whole family affair. It's really neat that you've got your dad building different events and things like that and you know that your sister has been helping out.
Matt Krueger:My mom is. It's a full like. I feel like sometimes I do not contribute enough, whereas, like the other parts of my family members are doing a lot of things, but I mean it's a total team effort. I, whereas, like the other parts of my family members, are doing a lot of things, but I mean it's, it's a total team effort. You know, I'm stuck in the office doing stuff that I got to deal with and then they're out there doing things as well, so I mean it's a whole family effort. Fun fact actually is the the women actually own the business, so the husbands do not.
Sarah:That's cool.
Matt Krueger:So it is. So we kind of put that little plug. It's actually a woman owned business at that point. So you know.
Jodi:Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us about this. Yeah, I learned a ton about just like simple corn maze agronomics, but also like the precision agronomics of it too, and about the whole maze in general. So thank you again so much for your time. Folks, please go check out Valley Corn Maize, google it, look it up, be there this fall and take it in and take a look at this really the world's largest corn maze.
Matt Krueger:World's largest corn maze. So, like I said, next year we may be back down to 15 acres. So if you want the opportunity to come out this fall World's Largest Corn Maze we'd love to see you.
Jodi:Awesome. Thank you so.