Once too cold for the crop, North Dakota now raises corn across its eastern and central counties, as hardier hybrids and a warming calendar push the Corn Belt's edge ever north.

Through the raw weeks of late winter, ranchers in the western counties keep a round-the-clock watch over the calving herd, for a spring blizzard can turn a good crop of calves into a hard loss.

Guided by satellites and variable-rate maps, today's plains machinery plants, sprays and fertilizes with an accuracy measured in inches, and the family farm has quietly become a data operation.

Earlier-maturing varieties have pushed the soybean frontier deep into North Dakota, and the crop now rivals wheat for acres across the eastern half of the state.

From Fargo to Bismarck to the smallest county seat, the summer farmers market has become a fixture again, reconnecting plains growers with the neighbors who eat what they raise.

With more hives than any other state and a bloom that stretches from clover to canola to sunflower, North Dakota's beekeepers again lead the country in honey by the barrel.