Studies on the Free Sugars of the Barley Grain Ii. Distribution of the Individual Sugar Fractions

The free sugars of ten samples of ungerminated barley were separated by partition chromatography and estimated by the Somogyi micro-copper method. The absolute quantities of the different sugar fractions varied widely from sample to sample, but sucrose was always the most plentiful (mean values, 0.92% of grain, 49% of total free sugars) followed, in order of abundance, by raffinose and glucodifructose. Hexoses amounted to less than 10% of the total sugars. In a sample of Spratt-Archer barley, approximately 75% of the sucrose and 80% of the raffinose was located in the germ and aleurone, whereas 65% of the hexose sugar was in the endosperm.