Fuel vs. food: Could pennycress be the answer?

Galesburg.com (The Register-Mail)
By JILLIAN STAMBAUGH
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jul 21, 2009 @ 04:02 PM

Weed becomes a crop at WIU


Macomb — Always in search of ways to make land more productive, the Alternative Crops Research Program at Western Illinois University has been hard at work developing a breed of field pennycress in hopes of establishing it as an off-season, biodiesel-producing crop.

During Western’s Alternative Crops Field Day, program director Dr. Win Phippen said he had 32 different lines collected from around the world planted on the WIU Agricultural Field Laboratory — currently, he is the only breeder of pennycress in the country.

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