Mark Alfred Carleton

Mark Alfred Carleton was an American botanist and plant pathologist best known for introducing hardy Russian wheat varieties into the American wheat belt. Raised on a Kansas farm and trained at Kansas State Agricultural College, he joined the United States Department of Agriculture as an assistant pathologist after studying plant rusts, and he noticed that turkey red wheat grown by Kansas Mennonites survived rust outbreaks that destroyed other varieties. Because that wheat had originated in Russia, Carleton taught himself Russian and was sent by the department to Russia in 1898 and again in 1900 to collect hard red and durum wheat varieties for testing in the United States. The wheats he brought back became the foundation of the durum and hard red winter wheat industries of the American Great Plains.