I’m told it’s an old tradition, but for me it’s a first: time to enter the Rio Grande Community Farm’s annual Maize Maze!
Actually, this year it should be called the Sorghum Maze. The farm’s blog explains:
Sorghum is an old-world grain that produces a cereal crop. Sorghum is used primarily as animal-feed, but also in the production of beer, ethanol, and a southern specialty: sorghum molasses.
Importantly for the use in a maze, sorghum also grows tall and dense, like a field of corn. In fact, sorghum mazes, and mazes made of other tall grasses, are sprouting all across the world, from Tazmania to Tennessee.
The Rio Grande Valley is getting its own taste of sorghum the last two weekends in October, complete with paletas, food trucks, and educational programming by Explora!, the Audubon Society, the ABQ biopark, and more!
Why sorghum?
“Sorghum uses less water, which is an important resource in the High Plains. Plus, it uses less fertilizer. Therefore, the environmental impact is much less compared with growing corn” says farmer Dale Artho in a 2015 interview with journalist Bill Speigel.