M David Marks

Domestication of pennycress as new winter annual cover/cash crop using genomics and classical mutagenesis to identify and stack key traits. Domesticated pennycress can potentially be grown between the harvest of traditional summer crops in the fall and harvested for its oilseed in the late spring ahead of the planting of the next year's traditional summer crop. The oilseeds can be used for producing biofuels and products, as well as new human food and animal feed products. Varieties have been created that produce a high oleic oil very similar to that of canola. Stacked varieties are ready for testing ahead of commercialization. As a cover crop pennycress can use and prevent the escape of excess fertilizer, reduce soil erosion, provide a pollen/nectar source for early spring insects, and reduce the emergence of spring weeds. This project is part of the Forever Green Initiative.