Where is the best place to find farm crops as my in scale layout is set in Iowa?
Your post said your N scale layout was set in Iowa. Your member profile did not say where YOU are set (ie where you live) so I do not know if you are near your prototype or near a hobby store.
I just got my Walthers sale bulletin yesterday and saw a lot of farm crop scenery items advertised AS HO SCALE and I iummediately started wondering if any of them would be usable for N (before reading your post). Do some corn stalks grow 4 feet tall and some 7 feet tall? A 4 foot tall HO cornstalk could be a 7 foot cornstalk in N. But I would have to see them in a hobby shop to tell.
Sometimes modeling involves a lot of imagination in what something can be made to be instead of what it is labelled. Especially for we N scalers. I once was modeling a hillbilly's cabin and I wanted to characterize him as having chickens running around under his porch. N scale chickens? I "figure-bashed" them from HO scale pigeons.
Similarly, a small pig for HO could be a big hog for N- but I would probably paint it differently from piglet pink.
I would have to look at the item to see if it would work.
Writing this reply reminds me, I need to check my own profile, to see if it has information that would help someone trying to help me with modeling and trainstuff, without giving information that would help identity purloiners and spamsenders.
Alkem Scale Models N Scale Corn is very well done. Not cheap, and a bit of work vs. other models, but great for a foreground scene.
Walthers sells a variety of scenery materials that can be adapted to modeling crops -- just check the catalog. There is also this set from Noch that offers lettuce, pumpkins, etc.http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/189-8101
For plowed but unplanted fields, custom builder Rick Fortin uses the inner "waffle" of corrugated cardboard painted an appropriate color. You might have to look around a bit for a size that is well-suited to N scale, but the effect is very good.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
Some of the best looking agricultural fields I have seen have been made out of Corduroy cloth. You can find it from very fine to quite coarse.
If you get a field green colour, the first step is to get a cookie sheet and just wipe some India Ink or clothing dye on it. Next lay the corduroy on it long enough that the bottom turns black or dark brown, depending on the colour you have chosen. It will take practice but the secret is to not let the ridges in the Corduroy get the ink soaked up into them. Next if you like, you can dry brush some yellow or other colour on the top to represent flowers or Blueberries or whatever.
Using a brown Corduroy simulates end of season or another kind of crop like Hops (hic!). Again Corduroy can be very effective. Especially with practice. Put a tractor on it and it looks great.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."