Maize & Maze Education

The Monkey Maze will be built using forage maize.  This remarkable plant is grown all over the world and has many different uses.

Maize grows very fast - 3 months from the time it is sown the maize is taller than an adult.

Of 10,000 items in a typical supermarket, at least 2,500 items use maize in some form during production or processing.

Download PDF educational packs:

Download Educational Pack 1
Download Educational Pack 2
Download Educational Pack 3
Download Educational Pack 4

Maize for Food:
We eat maize in many different ways.  These include:

Other Uses of Maize:
Maize has many uses other than food.  Maize products can appear in:

Maize on the Farm

On the UK Dairy farm the whole plant is harvested around the middle of October and all the plant (cobs, leaves and stalk) is usually turned into silage.  In October the Maize Maze will be harvested and fed to the cows.  A cow could eat 8 tonnes of maize silage in a year.

1 acre of forage maize provides enough maize silage to feed 2 cows for the winter.  These 2 cows produce 16 tonnes of slurry, which is spread on the land and contains enough nutrients to grow 1 acre of forage maize.

What do six farms, a garden centre, two wild life parks, a stately home, a castle and a sports park all have in common?

Mazes. Enormous mazes cut during the summer months into fields of corn. Unique puzzles on an enormous scale carved into the landscape.

Chantelle’s Monkey Maze near Wareside, will be Hertfordshire’s maize maze, and will cover nine acres of Hertfordshire countryside will be a monkey puzzle of a maze.
 
Two and a half miles of paths, hedged by corn on the cob and sunflowers, will map out the shape of a giant gorilla.

Amazingly, the owner, Martyn Burridge, is neither a farmer, nor a landowner but a maize maze fan:

"I'd been to one a couple of years previously," he says " and it was one of those special things I did with my girls that we all loved - no one was dragging their feet - it was fun just simple wholesome fun."

With a nine acre field donated from a local land owner, a friendly farmer and an Adrian Fisher maze design in the bag, Martyn is in business:

"I know squat about farming" he says "although I know an awful lot about maize now...!"

Martyn plans to start planting in May.

By the end of May the field will be full of 2" high corn shoots and GPS (Global Positioning System) will be brought in to mark out the paths of the maze.

"We will have fun with a satellite antennae and a hand held computer as we literally walked down the centre of every path with someone walking behind me spraying a white line. “

"Then it will start to grow.“  We will then literally weed out more than 200,000 plants by hand to clear 2 and a- half miles of path.

Ten days of hand weeding later the monkey maze shape will emerge.

With the official opening of the maze set for July 16, the maize is expected to have reached a height of four feet. But growing at a rate of 6" a week the corn won't stop until it has reached a towering 6-8 feet.

Towering corn and the sheer size of the maze promises to keep visitors lost and disoriented for hours.

A trail of clues to find in the maze and a code to crack adds to the puzzle. But people won’t be hopelessly lost and confused unless they want to be. Vantage towers will help visitors get their bearings and a squad of staff will be on hand to round people up or to go in and rescue people.

So no excuses for cheating and forcing a way through a hedge.

Martyn and his team all feel very protective about the maze.

With the official opening on July 16th, Chantelle’s Monkey Maze promises to provide hours of fun and frustration.

"I am looking forward to watching the maze grow” says Martyn “in memory of our daughter Chantelle and dedicating it to my loved ones Claire and Charlie “

"It has absolutely no purpose at all except fun and for me it will be my field of memories."