Ed Hain thought his corn was a liar in the fall of 1975. Atop a John Deere 7700 rumbling through a Nebraska field 80 miles west of Omaha, Hain watched his combine swallow four acres of 200 bu. corn.

Failure is the price of success on the farm. In 2023, John Smith planted cluster corn in Kansas, James Hitchcock tried wide row corn in Georgia, and Bill Jones targeted a triple crop on his Indiana ...