Standardization of dehydration technology in African marigold (Tagetes erecta)

The experiment was carried out to standardize dehydration technology of African marigold (Tagetes erecta) under different dehydration duration in two different embedding media river sand and fine silica gel in hot air oven. The African marigold flowers dehydrated in hot air oven embedding in fine silica gel provide maximum moisture reduction percentage at 24 hour drying while maximum colour retention, shape changes and texture was at 6 hours duration drying as compared to fine river sand media. With respect to mode of desiccation, embedding drying with silica gel yielded best acceptable quality dried flowers for all the four quality parameters studied in hot air oven.