“You've made many of the toughest decisions in your entire business career, maybe in your entire life. Maybe you had to let employees go,” says Mel Kleinman, president of Humetrics, a human resource consulting firm.

Brian Sieker banked on his personal knowledge, bootstrapped a specialized business with $1,000, and flipped the script on a proverbial maxim: You can go home again.

As seeds hit the ground, they’re under attack from various predators.

“The ground is working like it hasn’t for several years,” says Ryan Meyerkorth. “We’ve been able to get after it and get a lot planted in the last week.”

USDA announced in its April WASDE report ethanol dropped by 375 million more bu. for this marketing year, down to 5.05 billion bu.