The invention discloses a straw pretreatment method for extracting hemicellulose. The straw pretreatment method comprises the steps of soaking and wetting straws by virtue of pretreatment liquid, sending the obtained mixture into a pulping machine, pulping until the particle sizes of obtained materials are smaller than or equal to 1.0mm, carrying out solid-liquid separation on the obtained materials, collecting solids, washing the solids with water, and extracting the hemicelluloses by virtue of the solids, wherein the pretreatment liquid is an alkali solution with the concentration of 1g/L-20g/L. According to the straw pretreatment method, straw fiber is wetted and softened by virtue of alkali liquid with a relatively low concentration, and the pulping machine is utilized for pulping the wetted straws, so that the contact area between the fiber in the straws and the pretreatment liquid is greatly improved, impurities such as acetyl, pigments and the like in the straw fiber are beneficially removed, the content of impurities in the subsequent hemicellulose extraction liquid is decreased without losing hemicelluloses in the straws, the extraction rate of the hemicellulose is increased, and furthermore, the consumption of treatment power of the materials is low.