Feedstock research: pennycress in winter rotation for biodiesel

Pennycress is a weed that researchers think has the potential to quell the food versus fuel debate. If initial findings prove true, it could become a biodiesel feedstock that doesn’t compete with corn and soybeans for acres.
By Susanne Retka Schill



Researchers in Illinois believe they have the answer to the continuing food versus fuel debate and high commodity prices that challenge the biodiesel industry: pennycress. Their excitement stems from the ability of the plant to be transformed from a weed into a biodiesel feedstock. “It’s off season from corn and soybeans, has high seed yield and high oil,” says Terry Isbell, lead researcher in the new crops and processing technology group at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research at Peoria, Ill. “This plant wants somebody to pay attention to it.”

Field pennycress may be a new crop in development, but it’s an old weed. Thlaspi arvense is a winter annual weed known by farmers under several names—field pennycress, stinkweed, frenchweed—that grows widely across the Midwest. It isn’t considered a big weed problem because it completes its life cycle in late spring and doesn’t compete with newly planted corn or soybeans. Pennycress is a member of the mustard family. Its heart-shaped, flat seed packets carry the tiny oilseed that yields 36 percent oil when crushed. That kind of oil yield, plus seed yields in wild stands that approach 2,000 pounds per acre, make pennycress comparable with canola as an oilseed crop. Isbell almost didn’t notice those traits, however, when he initially tested pennycress oil six years ago.

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