Sitting in his office at Stewart Seeds in Greensburg some 20 years ago, Dave Nanda, a corn breeder at the time, was asked a very interesting question. Or at least he says it was. I'm flattered. I'm the one that asked the question, as he tells the story.

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"How high can corn yields go?" I asked. Remember, this was the early to mid-1990s. Nanda sat back in his chair, leaned forward and did a little calculating, looked at me and said, "Tom, there is ample supply of what corn needs to raise 500 bushels per acre."

Ahead of his time: Dave Nanda envisioned the reality of 500 bushel per acre corn long before a farmer demonstrated that it was possible to achieve it.

That sounded like pie in the sky at the time. Fast forward to 2014 and enter a farmer from Georgia. He harvested 503 bushels per acre in a 10-acre plot as part of the 2014 National Corn Growers Association corn yield contest. And although he holds some of his secrets close to his vest, the fact remains – 500 bushel corn yields are possible. It's not only possible, it has been achieved.

How to get to 500 bpa corn yield
Nanda did more that day in his office than throw out a mind-boggling figure of 500 bushels per acre. He laid out the process to get there.

First, he sketched a Christmas-tree like plant with lower leaves that would capture nearly all the sunlight coming down on them. Then he indicated the population could go as high as 70,000 plants per acre. He said high population would be needed to get enough ears to support that many kernels. Then he suggested spacing the plants out as close to equidistant spacing as you can.

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Nanda put his money where his mouth was. He put out equidistant-spaced demonstration plots at Greensburg to show the possibility of giving plants more elbow room. Then he began planting 870,000 seeds per acre in his inbred nurseries. His theory was that if the goal was plants that could withstand such high populations, it made sense to start searching for and selecting for them from the very start, right in the inbred nursery.

Quietly, others have followed suit, whether they always say so or not. Now Harry Stine and his son, Myron, are debuting twin-20 inch rows with planters made by John Deere and Great Plains specifically for Stine Seeds.

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The spacing is actually a pair of 8 inch rows 12 inches part, producing a nearly-equidistant effect, just like Nanda imagined more than 20 years ago.

Myron Stine says they have hybrids that can handle 50,000 plants per acre in this environment. Is it really that much more of a stretch to 70,000 plants per acre someday?

I know how Nanda would answer the question – I don't even have to ask!