The young leaves can be eaten as greens, added raw to salads or boiled for ten minutes.

The leaves contain protein, vitamin A and vitamin C.[3] Field cress has been targeted for domestication at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), because it holds high agronomic promise as a biennial/perennial oilseed crop as it has many good characteristics of a high-yielding winter-hardy crop.

[4][5] Unlike any other oilseed crop, field cress can be highly productive in the northern parts of temperate regions and has been successfully grown in Umeå, Sweden (40 km south of the Arctic circle) where it can yield correspondingly 3.3 tons/ha.

In addition, field cress provides important ecosystem services as it functions as a cover crop during winter and can be undersown a spring cereal.

The researchers at SLU have identified and mapped several genes in field cress that are known to be important for domestication related traits such as flowering time, pod shattering and seed dormancy.