Ft‐ir spectroscopy as a tool for the study of biological and chemical treatments of barley straw

Diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared (FT‐IR) spectroscopy has been used to characterise the changes in barley straw when subjected to biological and chemical treatments. The untreated and treated straws were also analysed by traditional analytical techniques for neutral sugar residues and lignin. A comparison between the spectroscopic data and the chemical analyses showed that FT‐IR spectroscopy was a quick and non‐destructive analytical technique which could be used to assess the efficacy of treatments applied to annual plants.