Abstract
Agriculture in the Upper Midwest of the USA is characterized by a short growing season and unsustainable farming practices including low-diversity cropping systems and high fertilizer inputs. One method to reduce the magnitude of these problems is by integrating a winter annual into the summer-annual-dominant cropping system. For this reason, pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) has garnered interest in the agricultural community due to its winter annual growth habit and potential for industrial oil production, making it an ecologically and economically desirable crop. Despite decades of research focusing on pennycress as an agricultural weed, little is known about its best management practices as an intentionally cultivated crop. The majority of agronomic research has occurred within the past 10 years, and there are major gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed prior to the widespread integration of pennycress on the landscape. Here we review relevant agronomic research on pennycress as a winter annual crop in the areas of sowing requirements, harvest, seed oil content, seed oil quality, cropping strategies, ecosystem services, and germplasm development. The major points are as follows: (1) there is little consensus regarding basic agronomic practices (i.e., seeding rate, row spacing, nutrient requirements, and harvest strategy); (2) pennycress can be integrated into a corn (Zea mays)–soybean (Glycine max) rotation, but further research on system management is required to maximize crop productivity and oilseed yields; (3) pennycress provides essential ecosystem services to the landscape in early spring when vegetation is scarce; (4) breeding efforts are required to remove detrimental weedy characteristics, such as silicle shatter and high sinigrin content, from the germplasm. We conclude that pennycress shows great promise as an emergent crop; however, current adoption is limited by a lack of conclusive knowledge regarding management practices and future research is required over a multitude of topics.
Highlights
Pennycress (Thlaspi arvense), known as field pennycress, fanweed, French-weed, and stinkweed, is an emerging Brassicaceae oilseed crop that was first identified for production in 1944 (Clopton and Triebold 1944)
Unlike many winter annual crops grown in the Upper Midwest, pennycress seed can be pressed for oil and provide near-term economic benefits to growers (Moser et al 2009a, b; Moser 2012)
While research has been conducted on pennycress as a persistent weed in canola (Brassica napus) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) for decades (Best and McIntyre 1975; Warwick et al 2002), earnest development of agronomic management practices for pennycress as a cultivated crop did not begin until its oil was evaluated as a potential biodiesel feedstock in 2009 (Moser et al 2009a, b) followed by the sequencing of the genome in 2015 (Dorn et al 2015)
Summary
Pennycress (Thlaspi arvense), known as field pennycress, fanweed, French-weed, and stinkweed, is an emerging Brassicaceae (mustard family) oilseed crop that was first identified for production in 1944 (Clopton and Triebold 1944). Despite its point of origin in Eurasia, naturalized accessions of pennycress have been found throughout temperate regions of the USA and Canada indicating regional adaptation (Holm et al 1997; Warwick et al 2002; Phippen and Phippen 2013)
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