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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Bio-oils Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #386257
Research Project: Development of New Value-Added Processes and Products from Advancing Oilseed Crops

Location: Bio-oils Research

Title: Comparison processing of wild-type pennycress and light-colored CoverCress seeds

Author
item Evangelista, Roque
item Hojilla-Evangelista, Milagros - Mila
item ULMASOV, TIM - Covercress, Inc
item Cermak, Steven - Steve

Submitted to: Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/20/2021
Publication Date: 9/5/2021
Citation: Evangelista, R.L., Hojilla-Evangelista, M.P., Ulmasov, T., Cermak, S.C. 2021. Comparison processing of wild-type pennycress and light-colored CoverCress seeds. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops, September 5-9, 2021, Zoom Virtual Meeting.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) is a winter annual oilseed crop that can be grown between corn and soybean growing seasons in most of the Midwestern U.S. The oil can be used as feedstock for conversion into biofuels and the meal can be used as feed. Protein concentrates and isolates obtained from wild-type pennycress (WT-PC) seed meal have good functional properties (solubility, foaming, and emulsifying) that are useful in food applications. CoverCress (CC) Y1126, a yellow-seeded pennycress, has been the focus of seed grow-outs recently in preparation for scaling up production. Laboratory-scale oil and protein processing were conducted to determine if the qualities of the products obtained from CC-Y1126 differ from those of WT-PC. Oil was extracted first by prepressing and then with hexane. Protein was extracted from the defatted meal using 0.1 M NaCl at 1:10 w/v meal-to-liquid ratio. CC-Y1126 seeds were smaller (0.89 g/1,000 seeds) than WT-PC seeds (1.07 g/1,000 seeds). The WT-PC and CC-Y1126 seeds have 33.1.3% and 36.1% oil contents (dry basis, db), respectively. Screw pressing resulted in similar residual oil contents in the cake (15.2 and 15.8 %, db) but the oil yield was higher for CC-Y1126 (24.1% versus 21.1%) because of its higher initial oil content. Hexane extraction produced defatted meals with <1% oil content. The color of CC-Y1126 press oil was lighter than that of WT-PC oil (8.8 versus 10.0 Gardner) but the hexane-extracted oils were about the same color (12.4 versus 12.7 Gardner). Both oils have similar fatty acid composition, with erucic and linoleic acids as major components at around 30% and 22%, respectively. CC-Y1126 seeds had 33% less crude fiber than WT-PC (12.9% versus 19.3%). CC-Y1126 defatted meal had slightly higher crude protein content (37.6%) than WT-PC (35.2%). Protein yield from CC-Y1126 (49.0%) was much higher than from WT-PC (36.3%) despite the small difference in crude protein content in the defatted meal. The protein extract obtained had 71-75% crude protein (qualifies as concentrate). The functional properties (solubility, foaming, and emulsifying) of CC-Y1126 protein concentrate matched those of the WT-PC, indicating similar potential use in dairy substitutes, whipped toppings, dips, beverages and meat substitutes. The difference in the seed physical characteristics between WT-PC and CC-Y1126 had no effect in oil extractability, but the lighter color of oil from CC-Y1126 will reduce the cost associated with bleaching in oil refining, if required.