Biochemical methane potential (BMP) is a very important characteristic of a given feedstock for optimisation of its use in biogas production. However, the long digestion time needed to determine BMP is the main limitation for the use of this assay during the operation of anaerobic digesters to produce biogas. Fourier transform mid-infrared photoacoustic spectroscopy (FTIR-PAS) was used to predict the BMP of 87 plant biomasses. The developed calibration model was able to explain 81% of the variance in the measured BMP of a selected test set with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 40 NL CH4 kg (1) of volatile solids (VS) and a ratio of performance to deviation (RPD) of 2.38. The interpretation of the regression coefficients used in the calibration revealed a positive correlation of BMP with easily degradable compounds (amorphous cellulose, hemicellulose and aliphatic compounds) and a negative correlation with inhibitors of cellulose hydrolysis (lignin, hemicellulose). (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.