Agricultural and Biological Research

Composition of a low erucic acid, low fiber field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L) grain referred to as CoverCressTM developed through breeding and gene editing

Gary Hartnell*, Shawna Lemke and Chris Aulbach

Field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) can be domesticated and cultivated as an annual in a corn/pennycress/soybean rotation where pennycress is sown and harvested as a cash cover crop. To improve the nutritional profile, pennycress was modified in two ways to achieve the same alterations in characteristics: 1) through selection of mutants and 2) through gene editing. These alterations resulted in a low erucic acid, lower fiber phenotype and the resulting products from these combinations are referred to as CoverCress CCWG-1 and CoverCress CCWG-2, respectively. CCWG-1 and CCWG-2 were planted as cover crops in five U.S. locations in the fall and the grain was harvested in the subsequent June. The grain was treated with 83 mM copper sulfate solution as a potential palatability agent for the naturally high glucosinolate levels, and was subsequently analyzed for nutrient (proximates, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, and vitamins) and anti-nutrient (sinapine, glucosinolates, mold) content. The low erucic acid, lower fiber phenotype was consistently achieved across five lots. Generally, the nutrient content for both CCWG-1 and CCWG-2 were similar to canola grain. Canola grain contains the anti-nutrient sinapine but is significantly reduced to below the level of detection in CoverCress grain. As expected, CoverCress grain contains about 10 times more glucosinolates than canola. Based on the composition of CoverCress grain, it may provide a source of energy and amino acids to animals with restricted inclusion based on the glucosinolate content.