I’ve recently purchased a box of Busch cornfield to plant on my layout. Before I attempt to paint and plant them, I’m wondering if there are any tips to making these look realistic. What color and kind of paint did you use? What did you use to cover the base? Was it hard to line the rows up?
I realize this isn’t a widely used item on layouts. If you’ve used a similar product please chime in. Thanks for any and all input.
Corey …
My Busch cornfield is part of a backgorund scene on a very narrow part of the layout.
It has been a while since I made it. As instructed by Busch, I painted the ears of corn yellow. Now I wonder why I did so becuase the corn would not have been husked while still on the cornstalk.
I used acrylic yellow paint, but I would leave the ears of corn green if I did this again. It is time consuming, and a full sized cornfield would take forever to put on the layout. I glued each little row to the layout and filled over the bases earth colored ground cover.
I included a scarecrow which was “kitbashed” from a Q-Tip. Crows sit on the scare crow and on nearby fence posts to be a bit humerous.
Gary, I was wondering about painting the corn in the husk. I figured that would have to be really close to harvest time to paint it yellow. I have a large area that will be cornfield so I thought I’d see how others have done it. Did you paint the stalks before or did you leave them the factory green. If you did paint them, what color did you use? Thanks for all of your info so far.
Anyone else have experience with this product?
I “planted” my cornfield about 8 months ago. It consists of 3 of the Busch packages.
First comment. Do not paint the ears of corn. They are inside of the husks even at harvest time.
Second comment. I sprayed a darker shade of green on the bottom side of the stalks to add a little contrast. It looked good but did not make a lot of difference. I do not remember the exact color but it was probably ScaleCoat BN green with a little black added.
Third comment. Be sure to give the stalks a twist with some long nose pliars. It will give some 3D body to the field. Be careful because the stalks can break but if a few do break do not worry. It just gives some variety to the field. Since my field was “planted” the stalks have untwisted a little bit.
Fourth comment. Add the yellow tassels if you are modeling late summer. I did and the tassles give some color a interest to the field. Early summer fields would not have the yellow tassles. In the fall there would be no tassels and the stalks would be turning yellow, tan and brown.
Fifth comment. Since the stalks are on plastic bases just glue the bases down next to each other. I used silicone glue. For a scale distance between rows a modern field would need the bases right next to each other. An older field would have more distance between rows. I do not know the exact distances for a particular time period.
Sixth comment. For ground cover I sprinkled Woodland Scenics dirt on the bases until they were covered. Then I used a pipette to add some diluted white glue to the dirt. Do not put green ground cover in the field unless the farner has a weed problem. The good farmer would only let other plants come up to the edge of the field.
Seveth comment. Do not run the rows ends right up to the edge of the field. Farmers always have some end rows which cross the ends of the main part of the field. If he planted with a 2 row planter he will probably have 2 end rows, a 4 row planter would create 4 parallel end rows.
If I may jump in to this post. Sorry, thanks. DONT paint the corn yellow on the stalk. The only time you see yellow is when the corn has been shucked or some critter has tore into it and had a bit of a snack. Your corn stalks should be , depending on the season, a mixture of green , light green, tan even some purple. The husk themselves will also be green as the rest of the stalk but will have a tassel at the top that is kinda of silver,white,with purple/burgundy . At the end of the season , near harvesting (for feed stock use ) the corn stalks turn tan brown. If it is used for insulage (sp?) it is harvested earlier and will be green, if it is for human consumption (different corn by the way ) it will be green vs tan because it is harvested earlier in the year.
The colors that everyone have given you is right on. Usually corn used for animal feed (silage) is cut after the first killing frost. This is what we did when I was younger and living of our family farm. The corn row spacing is usually 30 inches for todays standards. We usually had 8 rowes along the end of the fields. This allowed for the tractor and planter to turn around at the end and didn’t ruin any of the newly planted rows to be damaged by tire tracks.
Thank you to everyone who answered my question. The information will come in handy.