Now that it’s wintercress time here, I started thinking it might be a good canditate for domestication. It’s here among the first wild edibles to be ready to harvest, way earlier than anything cultivated. It’s already well edible even if there could be be some improvements made, namely size of leaves, stem and flowerhead as well as lowering bitterness of flowerhead. It’s been studied as a seedcrop and supposedly has higer seed yield than it’s closest reletives that are cultivated for oil. Still little unsure how to deal with it’s biannual/short lived perennial nature. I assume it already yields as spring sown to make it possible to make selection every year.
Only “problem” seems to be that there is also a similar species, which albeit can be used just as well, based on describtions should be a little later and yield less. I do not know if they cross, but it very well might be the case if they are just separated be different time to flower. Cross might be just a positeve thing, but might be harder to produce with the need to time their flowerings. Only disadvantage is that it would be hard to know which you are picking seeds from. If there are “wrong” seeds they would just be eliminated by selection. If enough people collect seeds, there should be variety of diverse “right” seeds as a base to start breeding. Anyone interested? I have some spots where I know there are plants that I can go pick seeds from once they are ready. It might be already seed time in parts of europe, if you know a place that has the species. Otherwise it might be hard to distinguish.
