>>780766You can try it at 8". What you'll most likely get is reduced yield per plant, but you'll still get corn. I'm going to suggest a row/plant spacing pattern that is more complex than just a grid or normal rows:
Say you want no two plants to be closer than X inches/cm apart.
Your rows will be spaced at X/2 in/cm apart
Your plants within the row will be 7/4 X in/cm apart. (It's actually 1.73X, but you are playing in the dirt here. 7/4 is more than precise enough.)
Your first plant in the first row will start at 0. The first plant in the second row will start at a 7/8 X offset from the first row, your first plant in the 3rd row at 9, etc..., so that the plants are staggered from row to row.
If you lay this out correctly, it will literally be a 20%, give or take, more efficient planting pattern than just a plain old grid. That means that you can fit more plants into the same space.
Pic related gives you the idea, though it was calculated in a different way than I calculated it.
For 8" equidistant planting, your row spacing would be 4", your plant spacing within rows would be 14", and your offset from one row to the next would be 7"
