Chemical composition and nutritional characteristics of some hull less and hulled barley cultivars grown in India.

Three hull less and nine hulled barley cultivars were grown during 1995-96 at Research Farm, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India and were used for chemical analysis such as nutritional and antinutritional parameters. Dolma, a hull less barley cultivar had higher contents of protein, fat, starch, in vitro digestibility of protein and starch, in vitro availability of Ca, Fe and Zn. Hulled cultivar BH-331 showed higher values of phytic acid (925 mg/100 g), polyphenols (625 mg/100 g) and amylase inhibitor activity (169 AIU) which might have contributed towards poor in vitro digestibility of Ca, Fe and Zn. Phytic acid and polyphenols manifested significantly negative correlation with in vitro availability of Ca, Fe and Zn and protein digestibility. Whereas amylase inhibitor activity showed significant and negative correlation (-0.992) only with starch digestibility.