From Farm to Flight: CoverCress as a Low Carbon Intensity Cash Cover Crop for Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production. A Review of Progress Towards Commercialization

Abstract

Thlaspi arvense L. (Field Pennycress; pennycress) is being converted into a winter-annual oilseed crop that confers cover crop benefits when grown throughout the 12 million-hectares U.S. Midwest. To ensure a fit with downstream market demand, conversion involves not only improvements in yield and maturity through traditional breeding, but also improvements in the composition of the oil and protein through gene editing tools. The conversion process is similar to the path taken to convert rapeseed into Canola. In the case of field pennycress, the converted product that is suitable as a rotational crop is called CoverCress™ as marketed by CoverCress Inc. or golden pennycress if marketed by others. Off-season integration of a CoverCress crop into existing corn and soybean hectares would extend the growing season on established croplands and avoid displacement of food crops or ecosystems while yielding up to 1 billion liters of seed oil annually by 2030, with the potential to grow to 8 billion liters from production in the U.S. Midwest alone. The aviation sector is committed to carbon-neutral growth and reducing emissions of its global market, which in 2019 approached 122 billion liters of consumption in the U.S. and 454 billion liters globally. The oil derived from a CoverCress crop is ideally suited as a new bioenergy feedstock for the production of drop-in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), renewable diesel, biodiesel and other value-added coproducts. Through a combination of breeding and genomics-enabled mutagenesis approaches, considerable progress has been made in genetically improving yield and other agronomic traits. With USDA-NIFA funding and continued public and private investments, improvements to CoverCress germplasm and agronomic practices suggest that field-scale production can surpass 1,680 kg ha−1 (1,500 lb ac−1) in the near term. At current commodity prices, economic modeling predicts this level of production can be profitable across the entire supply chain. Two-thirds of the grain value is in oil converted to fuels and chemicals, and the other one-third is in the meal used as an animal feed, industrial applications, and potential plant-based protein products. In addition to strengthening rural communities by providing income to producers and agribusinesses, cultivating a CoverCress crop potentially offers a myriad of ecosystem services. The most notable service is water quality protection through reduced nutrient leaching and reduced soil erosion. Biodiversity enhancement by supporting pollinators’ health is also a benefit. While the efforts described herein are focused on the U.S., cultivation of a CoverCress crop will likely have a broader application to regions around the world with similar agronomic and environmental conditions.