Annals of Horticulture

The fresh fenugreek trigonellafoenum-graeeum L. is more commonly used vegetable for cooking. Because of its perishable nature, during peak period most of the crop is wasted due to lack of proper post harvest processing techniques. The dehydrated leafy vegetables like fenugreek have the potential to become an important product because of relatively inexpensive, easily and quickly cookable and rich in several nutrients which are essential for human health. A Greenhouse type solar dryer and open sun was used and the experiments were conducted to develop dehydrated fenugreek leaves so as to enhance the availability of fenugreek leaves during off season. In the present study, fresh fenugreek leaves were pretreated in two ways viz. (i) dipping in a solution (leaves to water 1: 5 (w/w)) containing 0.1% Mgcl2 + 0.1% NaHCO₃ + 2% KMS in distilled water for 15 minute and (ii) blanching in boiling water containing 0.5% sodium metabisulphite for 2 min. The leaves were dried at 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 kg/m2 loading density, under greenhouse type solar dryer and open sun. Untreated fenugreek leaves were also dried as control samples. It was found that the average drying rate increased with increase in temperature and decrease with time and loading density. Chemically treated samples dried under GSD and OSD took lesser time than blanched and untreated samples. It was observed that total moisture loss increased with increase in drying temperature and decreased with decrease in drying temperature.