As well as using the juice for ethanol production, either directly or as a diluent for other biofuel crops, Fish suggests that it can be a source of lycopene and L-citrulline, two 'nutraeuticals' for which enough demand currently exists to make extraction economically worthwhile.

After these compounds have been removed from the 'cull' juice, it can still be fermented into ethanol, according to an USDA release.

These findings were published in BioMed Central's open access journal Biotechnology for Biofuels.