When settlers came to the prairie in the 1870s, they found that grasses grew better than any other crop there. In 1874, Russian Mennonite immigrants brought seeds of Turkey Red winter wheat from the Russian steppes. Well suited to the climate, Turkey Red and its varieties soon dominated Kansas wheat production and still make up half the state’s wheat crop. As farmers plowed the prairie to plant wheat, they replaced a complex ecosystem of hundreds of plant and animal species with single-species farm crops. Without the native prairie’s natural buffers and balances, crops became susceptible to insects, jackrabbits, floods, and drought. Despite these challenges, Kansas became America’s Bread Basket, and in 2007 it grew about 375 million bushels of wheat, more than any other state. Corn, soybeans, and sorghum are also cultivated there. In 1904, Gustav Krug founded the Hudson Milling Company, later renamed the Stafford County Flour Mills Co., which has since turned Kansas wheat into a broad line of flours and baking mixes. During the 1930s, soil erosion devastated prairie farms, and new federal programs, including the Soil Conservation Service and the Great Plains Shelterbelt Program, worked with Civilian Conservation Corps crews and local farmers to plant shelterbelts of cedar, juniper, locust, and cottonwood to stabilize soils.