The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of treatment of whole barley grain (WBG) with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) on in vitro rumen gas production parameters. Experimental treatments included untreated whole barley grain (BControl) and treated barley grain with NaOH+water (35 g + 220 ml/kg DM WBG) for 30 days (BNaOH). In vitro gas production technique was used to determine the gas production parameters of the samples. The amount of produced gas at each time of incubation in each glass serum bottle was taken as the gas production parameter. Results of the in vitro technique revealed that alkali treatment of WBG caused an increase in the asymptotic gas volume (b) versus BControl (122.157 and 130.969 ml, respectively). Constant rate of gas production (c) significantly decreased by BNaOH compared with BControl (0.0247 and 0.0351 ml/h, respectively). Furthermore, treatment of WBG caused a significant increase in the halftime of maximal gas production (t1/2) versus BControl (28.05 and 19.74 h, respectively). The finding of the present study leads us to conclude that treatment of WBG with NaOH improved in vitro gas production parameters.

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