The experimental material was grain of spring barley cv. Rodos, Rambo and Start, originating from a field experiment conducted at the Czesławice Experimental Farm of the University of Life Sciences in Lublin. Spring barley grain of the cultivars under analysis was subjected to the process of accelerated germination (4 days) under laboratory conditions. Samples of the grain of those cultivars, taken before and after the germination, were used to determine the amino acid composition in hydrolysates with hydrochloric acid with the method of column chromatography. The quantitative determination of amino acids served for the calculation of quality index (CS), by which the quality of protein in grain of the barley cultivars under study was represented. The germination process caused an increase in the content of protein in grain of the three cultivars, and an increase in the share of essential amino acids in protein of cultivars Rodos and Rambo, favourably modifying the nutritive value of the grain. Lysine was the limiting amino acid in the amino acid composition of protein in the grain of the barley cultivars studied. Following the germination process, the quality index (CS) value increased for cultivars Rambo and Start. The highest nutritive value was characteristic of protein of germinated grain of cultivars Rodos.