Professor of Genetics Illinois State University Normal, Illinois, United States
Abstract: Pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.; Field Pennycress) is being domesticated and developed as a winter annual oilseed cash cover crop named CoverCressTM for the 30 million-acre lower U.S. Midwest Corn Belt and other temperate regions. Pennycress is a Brassica species closely related to rapeseed/canola, carinata, camelina, and Arabidopsis. Pennycress has unique attributes including extreme cold tolerance and rapid spring growth allowing it to be planted in the fall e.g. at the time of corn harvest and harvested in the spring in time to plant full-season soybeans. Off-season integration of CoverCress varieties into existing corn and soybean acres will extend the growing season on established croplands, avoid displacement of food crops, provide ecosystem benefits including reduced soil erosion and nutrients runoff from farm fields, and could yield in the lower Midwest over one billion gallons of seed oil suitable for low-carbon-intensity biofuels/feed/food as well as nearly 7 million tons seed meal suitable for feed/food/industrial annually. This presentation will provide highlights of the genetic engineering of pennycress to improve seed oil and meal compositions and an overview of the combined efforts of academic, governmental, and industrial stakeholders in commercializing and further improving this new oilseed cash cover crop.
