A variety of narrow colors and crops affect the walls of the corn palace

Mitchell, SD (Dakota News Now) – According to Mitchell Radio, this year’s drought has affected the aesthetics of Mitchell’s most popular tourist attraction.

According to Palace director Doug Greenway, the exterior paintings of the Corn Palace will not be changed this year due to the lack of usable corn.

“Our amount is 25% of what it should be, or normally would be. For example, he picked black corn, which we use a lot, and usually 12-15 boxes, and we have three black boxes, and all the other colors are the same,” Greenway said. “So that’s 25-30% of the normal corn crop, so we knew then that we weren’t going to be able to do all the corn palace drawings for 2023, which is a popular theme in South Dakota.”

Greenway said they will make repairs as corn supplies allow and will try to finish the wall from the current theme under The Big Top.

Greenway says they thought earlier this summer that there might be a problem with the changing weather conditions in the region and the sensitivity of the corn.

“At the end of July, we had that week of high winds and hot, hot temperatures, and the corn was sprouting or sprouting, right? And we knew it wasn’t good because our palace corn is like sweet corn, where the day corn is. shorter than some of the farm corn, and the other thing is, you know, the corn is used by the farmers. It’s drought-resistant and insect-resistant and stuff like that. The corn is not our palace corn, so it’s really it is at the mercy of the elements and the rain that we receive.”

Weather permitting, a popular South Dakotan theme will be used on the 2024 walls, including portraits of Billy Mills, Mike Miller, Wild Bill Hickok, Bob Barker, Laura Ingalls Wilder and several others.

Copyright 2022 KSFY. All rights reserved.