Field Pennycress

(Thlaspi arvense , L.)

What is field pennycress?

Field Pennycress, (Thlaspi arvense, L.) is an overwintering annual oilseed plant in the Brassicaceae family, related to canola, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, mustard. It is named for its circular, penny shaped seedpods. Pennycress is also closely related to model Arabidopsis thaliana, the 'lab-rat' of the plant science world, the plant with the first sequenced genome. This close relationship allows us to transfer years of experiments and knowledge gained from Arabidopsis to rapidly domesticate field pennycress in a time frame of a few years rather than the thousands of years it has taken for most cultivated crops.

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Each pod contains 8-14 seeds that have oil contents competitive with leading soy, corn, palm, and other leading oil crops. Pennycress is native to Eurasia but through global trade it has been naturalized throughout the world. Pennycress is tolerant to a variety of abiotic and biotic stresses and is a relatively low input crop.