Impact of Different Drying Techniques on Quality Traits of Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) Rhizomes
Annu Kumari *
Department of Plantation Crops and Processing, Faculty of Horticulture, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar (W.B), Pin – 736165, India.
Yeluru Mohan Babu
Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012, India.
Eggadi Ramesh
Department of Vegetable and Spice Crops, Faculty of Horticulture, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar (W.B),Pin – 736165, India.
Tshering Ongchu Lepcha
Department of Plantation Crops and Processing, Faculty of Horticulture, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar (W.B), Pin – 736165, India.
Suman Tamang
Department of Plantation Crops and Processing, Faculty of Horticulture, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar (W.B), Pin – 736165, India.
Shrilekha Das
Department of Plantation Crops and Processing, Faculty of Horticulture, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar (W.B), Pin – 736165, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Under the present investigation, ginger was produced at the instruction cum research plots of the Department of Plantation Crops and Processing, Faculty of Horticulture, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal. The experiment was laid out in a factorial CRD. The study was undertaken with four ginger varieties namely Gorubathan, Suprabha, Suruchi and Suravi to evaluate the effect of different drying methods (sun drying, hot air drying at 50OC, 60oC and 70oC and microwave drying on time required for drying to a moisture content of 8 – 10% and to chemical composition (essential oil, oleoresin content and crude fiber content) of the end product. Results shown that Gorubathan variety has the highest essential oil (2.243%) and oleoresin content (14.840%) among the four varieties in this study, highest crude fiber content (5.253%) was observed in Suprabha and highest dry recovery (25.77%) was obtained from Suravi variety. In hot air drying, with increase in temperature essential oil, oleoresin and crude fiber content in dry ginger as well as dry recovery reduced.
With high dry recovery (25.77%), essential oil (2.037%) and oleoresin content (13.510%) and moderately low crude fiber content (4.637%), it can be concluded that Suravi variety is best suitable for producing dry ginger. Apart from microwave drying, sun drying can be recommended as better practice, when hygienically conducted, based on essential oil and oleoresin content.
Keywords: Ginger, oleoresin, essential oil, crude fiber, sun drying, hot air drying, microwave drying.