A University of Arkansas agronomist developed the “king” of early maturing cotton.
Carl Moosberg was born in 1905, the child of Swedish immigrants. He began working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture when he was 18 and after graduating from Texas Tech became an expert cotton breeder.
He worked at the University of Arkansas’s Cotton Branch Station from 1948 to ’72 and was a research agronomist with UA beginning in 1968, bringing his talents to field work that required long hours working with cotton plants to create the desired traits.
While at Cotton Branch, he developed a strain of cotton that matured early, gave high yields, and was resistant to such diseases as thrips and fusarium wilt. The cotton strain, which Moosberg named “Rex,” was released in 1957 and Progressive Farmer magazine proclaimed that “Rex cotton is Moosberg’s baby.” The magazine named him Man of the Year in 1966 and he retired six years later. Carl Moosberg died in 1990.
To learn more, visit encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
