b'CRESSING theTHE SPEED AT WHICHPennycress has moved from weed to commercial crop is unprecedentedperhaps the fastest completion of this process in history. The story begins in the early 2000s, when the U.S. THRESHOLDDepartment of Agriculture (USDA) began hunting for oil-seed crops for biodiesel production. Production of soybean oil for biodiesel raised food versus fuel concerns, but several plants, including field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.), caught USDA researchers attention. Seed oil content of pennycress was high, about 30%. But putting that fantastic finding The rapid rise of biofuelaside, there was great excitement about the weed for other powerhouse pennycress. Treena Hein reasons. Like canola, camelina and carinata, they believed pen-nycress could be developed into a true rotational winter cash crop, particularly for U.S. farmers in the Corn Belt. That is, with a harvest of mid-to-late May, it would have minimal impact on planting a main growing season crop like soy-beans, depending on the location and spring conditions. It could provide new revenue for farmers and important cover crop benefits to boot. There was also no reason to doubt that geneticallysimi-larly to what had been achieved with canolareductions in grain fiber along with lower erucic acid and glucosinolate levels in the oil could be achieved in pennycress, making the meal from crushing plants an excellent ingredient for live-stock feed. From there, it was full steam aheadand the timing could not have been better in terms of the new and powerful genetic tools.By 2014, CRISPR was ready, explains John Sedbrook of Illinois State University, one of the many scientists who has worked on pennycress. Use of that tool has been crucial, along with rapid screening of large mutant populations using modern genomic analysis, and the excellence of all the people involved. The speed at which pennycress has gone from weed to crop is really different. Pioneering WorkLets back up to 2008 for a moment, when USDA chem-ist Terry Isbell and experienced Western Illinois agronomy breeder Winthrop Phippen began to examine pennycress. Building on their work, our breeding team, led by Dr. Mark Messmer, found positive results in the properties of the progeny bred from the 800+ wild type accessions collected by our company, creating a base set of germplasm with com-A field of CoverCress. PHOTO PROVIDED BY COVERCRESS.32/ SEEDWORLD.COMJUNE 2024'