Watermelons could become the latest source of biofuel according to a report in the Telegraph online.

The report claims that scientists in the United States have discovered that around 50 percent of the fruit contained enough natural sugar for distilling into ethanol, which could provide valuable biofuel.

Retailers in the United States alone reject some 360,000 tonnes of ‘substandard’ fruit each year – fruit that is misshapen or blemished – which researchers suggest could produce nearly two million gallons of biofuel each year.

Currently, imperfect watermelons are ploughed back into the soil but a study into the potential of the fruit’s juice as a source of potential fuel by the US Department of Agriculture suggested the fruit could overtake chip fat, rapeseed oil and other sources of biofuel. Almost one fifth of the United States’ annual watermelon crop is left in the field due to imperfections and around twenty gallons of fuel could be produced per acre of fruit, according to the report published in the Biotechnology for Biofuels journal.

“We’ve shown that the juice of these melons is a source of readily fermentable sugars, representing a heretofore untapped feedstock for ethanol biofuel production,” said Dr Wayne Fish, the leader of the research team.