The pressure transducer technique of Theodorou et al. (1984) is becoming of increasing importance in food evaluation. The main advantage over end-point procedures is the collection of kinetic data on a food. Previously such data were only obtained by sequential sacrifice or in situ techniques. Earlier work (Harris, 1996) showed that kinetics in the early stages of the incubation may not accurately simulate the processes occurring in vivo and this led to the use of a priming technique when the microbial innocula is acclimatized for 24 h to a priming food similar to the basal diet of the donor animal. This work investigates the effect of the length of priming on fermentation characteristics of two foods.

Samples of barley grain and straw were ground through a 1-mm screen and a priming food of grass silage and concentrates prepared according to the method of Harris (1996). Gas production was determined from the barley grain and straw using bovine rumen liquor after exposing the microbial population to the priming food for 0 (unprimed), 6, 12, or 24 h. Gas volumes were recorded manually and the blank corrected volumes fitted to the equation of France et al. (1993).