Mission:
The New Crops and Processing Technology Research Unit develops new industrial products from new crops and environmentally benign processes. New crops currently include coriander, lesquerella, pennycress, cuphea, or other potential new crops including genetically engineered traditional crops. Environmentally benign processes use water, carbon dioxide, ethanol, ionic solvents, and similar media with biocatalysts to develop novel products from traditional and new crops. The identification and introduction of potential alternative crops involves seed analyses, including natural product isolation and characterization of both wild seed and new soybean varieties, and field trials in cooperation with crop breeders and agronomists.