Starch estimation in leaf tissue—A comparison of results using six methods

Six methods for estimating starch were applied to three samples of lucerne leaflet tissue. Three of the methods, each incorporating the specific glucose‐oxidase procedure to estimate the starch hydrolysis products, gave values in close agreement with each other. These values were lower than those obtained using three other methods which employed only a non‐specific hydrolysate measurement. Further investigation indicated that the elevated values probably were caused by inclusion of non‐starch polysaccharide in the estimation. It is suggested that the specific oxidase procedure could be easily incorporated into one of the methods which gave elevated values.