Higher crop yields increase the amount of biofuel, feed and food that can be produced on an acre of land.  Corn is a high yielding crop that has been improved through thousands of years of selection.  The past 70 of these years have been the most dramatic, with yield increases of approximately 500% obtained through the application of breeding and agronomic technologies (Troyer (2006) Crop Sci 46:528).  We have used a combination of breeding, biotechnology and analytical chemistry to further increase corn yields and identify corn hybrids that are more suitable for ethanol production.  Breeding rates of gains for yield have been doubled from historical levels by pooling diverse, elite lines from around the world and the application of marker-based molecular breeding methods.  Biotechnology traits that protect the yield potential of elite hybrids from biotic stress such as insects and weeds further increase average yields.  The introduction of next generation biotechnology traits such as drought tolerance, improved nitrogen use efficiency and increased grain yield over the next decade is expected to further increase corn yields.  Analytical methods such as high through put near infrared spectroscopy have allowed us to identify high yielding corn hybrids that have higher per bushel ethanol yields when used in the dry grind ethanol production process.  The combination of high grain yields and high fermentation yields results in more ethanol per acre.  When the ethanol production potential of even a fraction of corn stover is included in the calculation, corn is anticipated to produce large amounts of ethanol on a per acre basis while also producing high levels of feed products on the same acre.