Effect of Different Drying Methods on Quality of Rose and Gerbera Flowers

Gerbera is most commonly used world wide as a cut flower, while rose is largely harvested flower in India and used in various way. The full boom rose and gerbera flowers, were dried by employing different drying methods such as hot air drying at 40, 50 and 60 ⁰C, microwave oven drying with silica gel at 50 ⁰C, vacuum drying at 40 ⁰C and 760 mm Hg pressure besides solar and shade drying to find out the change in weight, size, colour, etc. During and after drying reduction in size, bio-chemical analysis for chlorophyll, carotene and xanthophylls content and sensory evaluation was carried out. From the reduction in size point of view, microwave oven drying of rose and gerbera flowers at 50 ⁰C with silica gel resulted the least percent reduction in size which was of the order of 11.85 and 17.77% respectively. The overall sensory evaluation of dried rose and gerbera flowers for colour, shape, petal structure and mechanical damage indicated that the microwave oven drying at 50 ⁰C with silica gel followed by vacuum drying at 40⁰C and 760 mm Hg vacuum performed well as compared to other treatments. The minimum decrement in all the three colour pigments was observed in the flowers dried in microwave oven at 50 ⁰C with silica gel followed by vacuum drying at 40 ^oC and shade drying.