ISSN : 0256-6524 VOL. 50, No.

1 January-March 2013

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Sanchu Sukumaran, G S Manes, S K Singh, Arshdeep Singh and Anoop Dixit JAE : 50 (1)
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Effect of Spraying Pressure and Usage on Discharge Rate and

Wear of Hollow Cone Nozzle having different Nozzle Tip
Material
Sanchu Sukumaran1, G.S. Manes2, S.K. Singh3, Arshdeep Singh4 and Anoop Dixit5
Manuscript received:January 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: February, 2013

ABSTRACT

Spray nozzle and its tips, the most critical component of spray application equipment which influences the efficiency
and effectiveness of the chemicals applied are the most neglected component in today’s farming. Hollow cone nozzles
having different orifice tip materials (plastic, brass and stainless steel) were evaluated at three nozzle pressures
(1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 kg.cm-2) to assess their performance in terms of increase in discharge rate and wear of orifice tip
diameter. Percent increase in discharge rate of different hollow cone nozzles at three pressures and time interval of
usage showed that that plastic tip material could work within the permissible limit of 15 % increase in discharge
rate for about 90, 35, 10 h of use at pressure of 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 kg.cm-2, respectively. Similarly, brass tip material
can work for about 50, 30 and 7.5 h and stainless steel for 90, 50 and 17.5 h, respectively, at these pressures. The
increase in average orifice diameter was higher in case of brass tip nozzle as compared to plastic and stainless steel
tip nozzles at all pressures.

Key words: Discharge rate, hollow cone nozzle, orifice diameter, Patternator, spraying pressure

The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has played a
significant role in increasing agricultural productivity and
production. Pesticide application in India increased from
22,013 t in 1971 to all time high in 1991-92 (72,130 t),
and then decreased to 41,822 t in 2009-10 (Anon, 2011).
Among crops, the total global potential loss due to pests
varied from about 50 % in wheat to more than 80 % in cotton
production. Global estimated responses showed the losses
of 26.0-29.0 % for soybean, wheat and cotton, and 31.0,
37.0 and 40.0 % for maize, rice and potatoes, respectively
(Oerke, 2006).
Spray nozzle is the most critical component of spray
application equipment as the nozzle is designed to meter,
atomize and control the distribution of spray, influencing
the efficiency and effectiveness of the chemicals applied as
also probably the smallest and most overlooked component
of spraying machines. Hollow cone nozzles are most
suitable for applying insecticides and fungicides, as they
can produce small droplets with which the diseases and
pest attack can be controlled (Bindra and Singh, 1977).
The factors that influence the wear are abrasiveness and
concentration of material used in the spray mixture, shape,
material of nozzle orifice and spraying pressure (Ozkan
et al., 1992; Zhu et al., 1995). Due to wear of nozzle tip,
application rate of pesticides increases resulting in increased
cost of crop production, threat to environment and reduced
efficiency of spraying causing poor pest control (Ozkan et
al., 1992; Riechard et al., 1992; Ibrahim and Ergin, 2006).
Womac (2000) studied variation in droplet spectra from
a 131 “identical” reference nozzles serving as candidate,
dedicated reference nozzles, including the extremely coarse
category and concluded that manufacturing quality control
of nozzles based on droplet size and flow rate should be
improved. Nozzle manufacturing and tooling changes with
subsequent effects on droplet spectra should be monitored to
ensure accurate nozzle classification. Krishnan et al. (2004)
studied nozzle wear pattern of flat nozzle tip of brass, nickel
coated brass, plastic and stainless steel with reference to
pressure by scanning with Philips (model 301) scanning
electron microscope (SEM). The study revealed that brass
and plastic nozzle appear to be more eroded that nickel
coated brass and stainless steel nozzle at all pressures. If
the discharge rate of the nozzle exceeds by 15 % than the
initial discharge rate, the nozzle is considered as worn out
(Krishnan et al., 2004; Ozkan et al., 1992). Performance
studies on various nozzles, sprayers and their performance
characteristics have been conducted in India, but study on
performance of nozzles with usage, material of construction
and operating pressure have been carried out mostly in

1
Ex-M. Tech Student; 2Sr. Res. Engineer, email: manesgs@rediffmail.com; 3Assoc. Professor; 4Research Fellow and 5Res. Engineer, Department
of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004

1
January - March, 2013 Effect of Spraying Pressure and Usage on Discharge Rate and Wear of Hollow Cone Nozzle having different Nozzle Tip Material

abroad. A study was, therefore, planned to study the effect
of spraying pressure and usage on discharge rate and wear of
hollow cone nozzle having different nozzle tip material.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Hollow cone nozzles with different orifice tip materials
(plastic, brass and stainless steel) were evaluated at three
nozzle pressures (1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 kg.cm-2) to assess their
performance of spray in terms of increase in discharge rate
and wear of orifice tip diameter. Hand operated knapsack
sprayers are normally used with an average working
pressure of 3.0 kg.cm-2 (Anon, 1995a). The components of
these selected nozzles are shown in Fig. 1 and specifications
are given in Table 1.
Experimental Setup
A 2×2 m spray patternator employing 63 rectangular
channels of acrylic sheet having inner dimensions of each
channel as 2000 × 25 ×100 mm was used for studying
nozzle discharges (Fig. 2). Graduated tubes of 24 mm
inner diameter and 50 ml volume were used to collect the
sprayed liquid. The nozzle holding arrangement was made
at about 545 mm height (adjustable) on the top in middle
of the main frame. Pressure gauges were installed over
individual nozzles to regulate the operating pressure. The
discharge rates of each nozzle before and after wear were
taken from the patternator with clean water.
A three-cylinder piston type power spray pump was used to
generate pressure for the application of spray formulation.
All parts of the pumps were made from heavy duty brass
forging, and all its working parts were oil bath lubricated.
A control value assembly was provided to regulate pressure
and bypass the extra amount of liquid sucked by the pump,
which had not been utilized by the spray nozzles. It could
generate maximum pressure of 28 kg.cm-2, and had suction
capacity up to 36 l.min-1. It was operated by an electric
motor.

Fig. 1: Hollow cone nozzles with different orifice tip Fig. 2: View of patternator assembly for measurement
materials and spray pattern of discharge rate

Table 1. Specification of nozzles used

Parameter Sample
1 2 3
Orifice tip material Plastic Brass Stainless steel
Body and cap Plastic Brass Brass
Swirl plate material Plastic Brass Stainless steel
Diameter of orifice, µm 2166.17-2175.31 1743.99-1814.93 1518.29-1541.05
Orifice plate thickness, mm 1.1 1.1 1.0

2
Sanchu Sukumaran, G S Manes, S K Singh, Arshdeep Singh and Anoop Dixit JAE : 50 (1)
Olympus BX 61 microscope was used to measure the
diameter of orifice plate (Fig. 3). “Cell*” imaging software
for life science microscopy was used to determine the orifice
hole diameter. Olympus BX 61 microscope consisted of
control box, motorized microscope, hand switch, PC and
a monitor. Before measurement, acquisition condition was
checked to prevent any problem. A standard test grid was
placed in X direction under the microscope and the image
was focused sharply. As per IS 3652:1995 code, the test
liquid used was clean water with the addition of abrasive
material (Anon, 1995b). Hydrous aluminum silicate or
China Clay having specifications given in Table 2 was
used as abrasive material in the test liquid for conducting
the experiment (Anon, 2009). Due to repeated use, there is
deterioration of the powder particles in the tank mixture,
and the mixture was replaced at specific intervals (Anon,
1995b). The extent of deterioration of the mixture depends
on number of nozzles, flow rate through nozzles, and
volume of the mixture.
Fig. 3: Olympus BX 61 microscope to measure orifice
diameter
Table 2. Specification of abrasive material used in the
nozzle wear test
China clay / Hydrous aluminum silicate
Properties Value
Mean Particle size 2.0 µm
Top cut (d98) 8.0 µm
Passing on 500 mesh screen (25 µm) 100%
Passing on 350 mesh screen (25 µm) 100%
3
The following equation was used to determine the time of
replacement of the mixture (Anon, 2008):
300 × V
T=
Q ... (1)
Where,
V= Volume of mixture, l,
Q = Flow rate through all nozzles, l.h-1, and
T = Time when mixture must be changed, h.
Evaluation procedure
Three sets of hollow cone nozzles (ten of each set) having
different tip materials were purchased from the market.
The discharge rate of each nozzle was measured for a
fixed period at a predetermined pressure of 3 kg.cm-2. Four
nozzles of same tip material with minimum variation in
discharge rate were selected for the study. A storage tank
having capacity of 35 l was used to store the solution of
abrasive material and water @ 20 g.l-1 of abrasive material.
The liquid was sucked by the pump from the tank through
a suction pipe with positive head. At the open end of the
suction pipe, a strainer was provided to prevent the flow
of foreign materials with the liquid. The open end of the
bypass pipe from the control valve assembly was put into the
tank so that the liquid which was not utilized by the spray
nozzles could go back to the tank and help in agitating the
solution. After measuring the initial flow rate of nozzles on
patternator, the frame with three nozzles was shifted over
the water collecting trough. Long duration test (till the
discharge rate of the nozzle exceeded by 15 % than the
initial discharge rate) was conducted at each pressure
for each nozzle having different nozzle tip material
with spray liquid. Discharge rate of each nozzle mounted
over the patternator was measured after each 10 h interval of
operation using clean water. Discharge rate was calculated
by adding the quantity of sprayed water collected in the test
tubes for a specified period of time (1 min).
Wear of spray tip was determined by comparing the flow
rate of the used tip with the flow rate of a new tip of the
same size and type. Spray tips should be replaced when
the flow exceeds more than 15% than that of a new tip
nozzle (Krishnan et al., 2004). Increase in discharge
after a particular period of time was calculated from initial
discharge rate and discharge rate after a particular interval
of time as under:
Ft − Fi
Wear rate, % =
Fi
...(2)
January - March, 2013 Effect of Spraying Pressure and Usage on Discharge Rate and Wear of Hollow Cone Nozzle having different Nozzle Tip Material

Where, Table 3. Percent increase in discharge rate of hollow cone

Ft = Measured flow rate after time interval, ml.min , and -1 nozzles having different tip materials at different
pressures and time interval of usage
Fi =Initial flow rate, ml.min-1.
Pressure, Time, Percentage increase in running mode
Statistical Procedure discharge rate, %
Factorial completely randomized block design was used for Plastic tip Brass tip Stainless steel
kg.cm-2 h tip
finding difference in increase in discharge rate of hollow cone
nozzles having different tip materials at different pressures. 0 0.00 0.00 0.00
The trials were replicated three times. The effect on change in 10 1.84 3.14 0.68
diameter of orifice hole was analyzed using t- test. 20 3.06 7.83 1.28
30 5.69 10.81 3.69
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
40 7.31 12.89 5.12
1.0
Effect of Spraying Pressure, Nozzle Tip Material and 50 8.65 15.87 7.76
Usage on Discharge Rate 60 10.69 17.75 9.79
The effect of three levels of nozzle pressures for three types 70 12.64 18.35 11.07
of nozzle tip materials on discharge rate till the discharge 80 13.36 21.44 12.65
exceeded by 15 % than the initial discharge rate is presented 90 15.79 22.47 15.17
in Table 3. 0 0.00 0.00 0.00

Effect at spray pressure of 1.0 kg.cm -2 10 9.45 7.89 4.32

20 11.12 12.59 6.28
The increase in discharge after 10 h of usage for plastic 3.0
tip hollow cone nozzle was 1.84 %, and that of brass tip 30 13.74 14.94 10.20
nozzle and stainless steel tip nozzle were 3.14 % and 0.68%, 40 17.63 18.37 12.12
respectively, at nozzle pressure of 1.0 kg.cm-2 . 50 18.68 20.75 15.16
0 0.00 0.00 0.00
Brass tip nozzle reached 15 % increase in discharge rate
5 8.91 9.26 3.24
about 1.8 times faster than stainless steel and plastic tip
hollow cone nozzle. The discharge rate exceeded more than 5.0 10 15.49 23.03 9.72
15 % after 50 h of usage in case of brass, whereas similar 15 18.68 29.86 12.65
wear was reached after 90 h of usage of plastic and stainless 20 25.58 33.20 17.26
tip nozzles. The rate of increase in discharge was highest
in brass tip hollow cone nozzle, followed by plastic and
stainless steel tip nozzles. The results were in line with the of nozzle tip material and interval of use on percent increase
findings of Reichard et al., 1991; Krishnan et al., 2004; who in discharge rate was statistically significant at 5 % level of
reported that brass nozzle wore out fast, followed by nylon significance. The interaction of these parameters was also
and stainless steel. Analysis of variance showed that the effect significant (Table 4).

Table 4. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for percent increase in discharge at 1.0 kg.cm-2

Factor means
Nozzle tip material (M) 2.8249610 3.5550680 2.5839720
Time interval (T) 1.00 1.67 2.16 2.73 3.02 3.39 3.67 3.86 4.07 4.32
Anova
Source d.f. M.S. F-Ratio CD (5%) C.V.
M 2 7.6707680 240.51 .922228E-01 5.98
T 9 10.787750 338.24 .168375
MT 18 .14592150 4.58 .291634
Error 60 .3189 E-01

4
Sanchu Sukumaran, G S Manes, S K Singh, Arshdeep Singh and Anoop Dixit JAE : 50 (1)

Effect at spray pressure of 3.0 kg.cm-2
The increase in discharge of plastic tip hollow cone was
higher than that of brass tip and stainless steel tip hollow
cone nozzle for first 10 h of usage. The discharge rate
exceeded more than 15 % after around 30 h of usage in
case of brass tip, whereas in case of plastic tip the discharge
rate exceeded more than 15 % after around 35 h of usage.
Similar situation was reached after 50 h of usage in case of
stainless tip nozzles. The wears in plastic tip and brass tip
nozzles were 1.48 and 1.64 times, respectively, faster than
that of stainless steel tip nozzle in reaching 15% increase in
discharge rate. Analysis of variance showed that the effect
of nozzle tip material and interval of use on percent increase
in discharge rate was statistically significant at 5 % level of
significance. The interaction of these parameters was also
significant (Table 5).
Effect at spray pressure of 5.0 kg.cm-2
The increase in discharge rate exceeded more than 15 %
after about 10, 5 and 15 h for plastic, brass and stainless
steel tip nozzle, respectively. Fifteen per cent increase in
discharge rate for plastic and brass tip hollow cone nozzles
occurred 1.82 and 2.47 times faster than stainless steel tip
nozzles, respectively. The percent increase in discharge
rate of plastic tip and brass tip hollow cone nozzles were
almost same for the first 5 h of operation, whereas that
was more for brass tip hollow cone nozzle. The effect of
nozzle material and interval of use on percent increase in
discharge rate was statistically significant at 5 % level of
significance. The interaction of these parameters was also
significant (Table 6).
The percent increase in discharge was high at a pressure
of 5.0 kg.cm-2 for all tip materials of hollow cone nozzles,
followed by 3.0 kg.cm-2 and 1.0 kg.cm-2 respectively. The
percent discharge rate increase with usage. It is clear from
Table 3 that plastic tip material could work within the
permissible limit of 15 % increase in discharge rate for
about 90, 35, 10 h of use at a pressure of 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0
kg.cm-2, respectively. Similarly, brass tip material could
work for about 50, 30 and 7.5 h, and stainless steel for 90,
50 and 17.5 h, respectively, at these pressures.

Table 5. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for percent increase in discharge at 3.0 kg.cm-2

Factor means
Nozzle tip material (M) 3.3825330 3.4538240 2.8302170
Time interval(T) 1.00 2.84 3.28 3.724 4.11 4.37
Anova
Source d.f. M.S. F-Ratio CD (5%) C.V.
M 2 2.0971410 152.62 .792145E-01
T 5 13.423480 976.91 0.112026
MT 10 .12560270 9.14 .194035
Error 36 .137400E-01 3.64

Table 6. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for percent increase in discharge at 5.0 kg.cm-2

Factor means
Nozzle tip material (M) 3.5585220 4.1016880 2.8529870
Time interval(T) 1.0000000 2.7974600 4.0751180 4.5570420 5.0923750
Anova
Source d.f. M.S. F-Ratio CD (5%) C.V.
M 2 5.8801090 178.29 .135414
T 4 24.136220 731.84 .174819
MT 8 .48773960 14.79 .302795
Error 30 .329800E-01 5.18

5
January - March, 2013 Effect of Spraying Pressure and Usage on Discharge Rate and Wear of Hollow Cone Nozzle having different Nozzle Tip Material

Effect of Spraying Pressure on Orifice Plate Hole
Diameter
The average orifice plate hole diameter of hollow cone
nozzles having different tip materials at the start and
after 15% increase in discharge rate was measured using
Olympus BX-61 microscope (Table 7). The images of
orifice plates of hollow cone nozzle having different tip
materials at different pressures at the start and after 15%
increase in discharge are shown in Figs. 4-6.The average
orifice plate hole diameter of plastic hollow cone nozzle
increased by 5.47 to 7.05 % when the pressure increased
from 1.0 to 5.0 kg.cm-2, and the change in diameter was also
significant at 5% level of significance at all pressures (Table
8). It revealed that even use at low nozzle pressure resulted

Table 7. Diameters of orifice plate of different hollow cone nozzles at the start and after 15% increase in discharge rate

Diameter of orifice plate hole of different nozzle tip material, µm

Pressure, Time,
Plastic Brass Stainless steel
kg.cm-2 h
Diameter Increase, % Diameter Increase, % Diameter Increase, %
0 2175.31 1814.93 1520.34
1.0 5.47 9.89 4.50
90 2294.34 1994.36 1588.73
0 2167.29 1765.13 1518.29
3.0 6.71 18.19 6.69
50 2312.62 2086.27 1620.18
0 2166.17 1743.99 1541.05
5.0 7.05 22.11 7.83
20 2318.96 2129.60 1661.64

Fig. 4: Orifice plate of unused and Fig. 5: Orifice plate of unused and Fig. 6: Orifice plate of unused
used plastic tip hollow cone used brass tip hollow cone and used stainless steel
nozzles at different nozzle nozzles at different nozzle tip hollow cone nozzles at
pressures pressures different nozzle pressures

6
Sanchu Sukumaran, G S Manes, S K Singh, Arshdeep Singh and Anoop Dixit JAE : 50 (1)

Table 8. t-test for data of orifice plate hole diameter of hollow cone nozzles at different pressures

a. Plastic tip
1.0 kg.cm-2 3.0 kg.cm-2 5.0 kg.cm-2
A B A B A B
Mean 2175.3 2294.3 2167.3 2312.6 2166.2 2319.0
Std Deviation 2.105 29.951 7.405 30.560 5.603 10.035
Observations 6 6 6 6 6 6
P (Two tail) 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001
t value 9.711 11.322 32.564
df 10 10 10
Significance S S S
b. Brass tip
1.0 kg.cm-2 3.0 kg.cm-2 5.0 kg.cm-2
A B A B A B
Mean 1814.9 1994.4 1765.1 2086.3 1744.0 2129.6
Std Deviation 4.673 43.587 13.889 47.522 10.576 67.062
Observations 6 6 6 6 6 6
P (Two tail) 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001
t value 10.026 15.888 13.913
df 10 10 10
Significance S S S
c. Stainless steel tip
1.0 kg.cm-2 3.0 kg.cm-2 5.0 kg.cm-2
A B A B A B
Mean 1520.3 1588.7 1518.3 1620.2 1541.0 1661.6
Std Deviation 16.469 18.867 13.536 40.585 5.892 3.400
Observations 6 6 6 6 6 6
P (Two tail) 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001
t value 6.689 5.834 43.424
df 10 10 10
Significance S S S

in deterioration in the shape of the orifice hole. The average CONCLUSIONS

orifice plate hole diameter of brass hollow cone nozzle
increased by 9.89 to 22.11%, and that of stainless steel
hollow cone nozzle increased by 4.5 to 7.83 % when the
pressure was increased to 1.0 to 5.0 kg.cm-2. The increase in
average orifice diameter was thus higher in case of brass tip
nozzle as compared to plastic and stainless steel tip nozzles
at all pressures. This might be due to the poor quality of
nozzle tip material that had worn out faster than other nozzle
tips as brass tip could work for about 50, 30 and 7.5 h at
pressures of 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 kg.cm-2, respectively, within
the permissible limit of 15 % increase in discharge.
The rate of discharge of plastic, brass and stainless steel tip
hollow cone nozzles increased with increase in pressure and
usage. The average orifice plate hole diameter of all types
of nozzle tip materials increased with increase in pressure
and usage. The percentage wear in the mean diameter of
orifice was higher for brass tip nozzle than that of plastic
tip and stainless steel tip nozzle. Study revealed that plastic
tip material could work within the permissible limit of
15 % increase in discharge rate for about 90, 35, 10 h of
use at pressure of 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 kg.cm-2, respectively.
Similarly, brass tip material could work for 50, 30 and 7.5

7
January - March, 2013 Effect of Spraying Pressure and Usage on Discharge Rate and Wear of Hollow Cone Nozzle having different Nozzle Tip Material
h and stainless steel for 90, 50 and 17.5 h, respectively, at
these pressures.
REFERENCES
Anon. 1995 a. Indian Standard Crop protection equipment-
Hand operated knapsack sprayer, Piston type-Specification
(Fourth Revision), IS 3906:1995, Bureau of Indian
Standards, New Delhi.
Anon. 1995 b. Indian Standard Crop protection equipment-
Foot sprayer-Specification (Fourth Revision), IS 3652:1995,
Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi.
Anon. 2008. Procedure for measuring sprayer nozzle wear
rate. ASABE Standard 471, March, 1991(R2008). Available
on: www.asabe.org. viewed in 2008.
Anon. 2009. www.famousminerals.com/chinaclay. Visited
on 9th January 2009.
Anon. 2011. Agricultural Research Data Book 2011. Indian
Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi.
Bindra OS; Singh H. 1977. Pesticide Application
Equipment. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co, New Delhi,
pp:27-261.
8
Ibrahim E; Ergin D. 2006.The effect of wear on flow
rate increase of cone nozzle made of different materials. J
Agric. Sci., 9 (1), 73-78.
Krishnan P; Evans T; Ballal K; Kemble LJ. 2004.
Scanning electron microscopic studies of new and used
fan nozzles for agricultural sprayers. Applied Eng. Agric.,
20(2), 133-137.
Oerke E. 2006. Crop losses to pests. J Agric Sci.,
144 (1), 31-43.
Ozkan HE; Reichard DL; Ackerman KD. 1992. Effect
of orifice wear on spray pattern from fan nozzles. Trans.
ASAE, 35(4), 1091-1096.
Riechard DL; Ozkan HE; Fox R D. 1991. Trans. ASAE,
34(6), 2309-2316.
Reichard DL; Ozkan HE; Sweeney JS. 1992. Droplet
size distribution across the fan patterns of new and worn
nozzles. Trans. ASAE, 35(4), 1097-1102.
Womac AR. 2000. Quality control of standardized reference
spray nozzles. Trans. ASAE, 43(1), 47-56.
Zhu H; Reichard HE; Ozkan HE; Brazee RD; Fox RD.
1995. Mathematical model to predict wear rate of nozzles
with elliptical orifices. Trans. ASAE, 38(5), 1297-1303.
Khambe Vishal Krishna, Dipankar De and P. K. Sahoo JAE : 50 (1)
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Design and Development of a Tractor Operated Garlic Harvester

Khambe Vishal Krishna1, Dipankar De2 and P. K. Sahoo 3
ABSTRACT

Manuscript received: September, 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: February, 2013

India although being the second largest producer of garlic, the crop productivity is low as compared to the world
average. Low level of mechanization is a major factor of low productivity in India. Harvesting is one of the important
operations in garlic cultivation. In India, it is performed manually which is time consuming and labour unavailability
during peak harvesting seasons makes the task more difficult. A 4-row tractor operated garlic harvester was designed
and developed for mechanical harvesting of garlic. Digging unit of the harvester consisted of a V-shape blade having
width, length and thickness of 600 mm, 300 mm, and 10 mm, respectively. Soil separator unit was of 1000 mm long,
650 mm wide, with10 mm diameter rods spaced at 50 mm. Mean harvesting percentage of 96.12, plant damage
of 5.94%, soil separation index of 0.26, power requirement of 4.54 kW and field capacity of 0.24 ha.h-1 with field
efficiency of 68.7% were recorded for the harvester under field condition.

Key words: Garlic harvesting, digging, soil separation

Timeliness in farm operation is important to maximise
production, and can be achieved through farm mechanization.
Since 1960’s, India steadily achieved remarkable progress in
agricultural mechanization, but this remained concentrated
over few crops like paddy, wheat, etc. Though vegetable
contributes significantly in agriculture, vegetable farming
lagged behind in its mechanization. Garlic is one of the main
bulbous vegetable crops cultivated in India. With an annual
production of about 0.834 Mt, India is the second largest
producer of garlic in the world (Anon, 2010).
Among various operations in garlic cultivation, harvesting
is an important one, and labour intensive. During peak
seasons, due to non-availability of labour in time, delay in
harvesting results in heavy loss to the farmers. Migration of
agricultural labour from rural areas has further aggravated
the problem. One of the solution for increasing the profit
and productivity is to mechanise harvesting operation in
garlic cultivation.
Any root or bulbous crop harvester has two main functions,
digging the crop from soil and separating the plant mass
from dug soil to windrow them at rear. A harvester should
dig with highest possible harvesting percentage, less plant
damage and with less power requirement. Padmanathan
et al. (2006) designed, developed and evaluated a tractor
operated groundnut combine harvester. The harvester
could achieve maximum harvesting efficiency of 92.30%,
threshing efficiency of 82.30%, cleaning efficiency of
72.30% and minimum percentage of broken pods of
4.43% at 1.5 km.h-1 forward speed. Research conducted on
evaluation of carrot digger reported 97.8% carrot harvesting,
4.56% carrot damage, 0.21 soil separation index and power
requirement of 5.18 kW with field capacity of 0.21 ha.h-1
when operated at a speed of 2.3 km.h-1. The carrot digger
saved Rs. 1440/- per ha as compared to manual harvesting
(Shirwal, 2010).
Jadhav et al. (1995) developed a 3.8 kw self-propelled
onion digger windrower. They evaluated the machine with
prevalent local practices in different seasons at different
locations, and reported that percentage of damaged bulbs
ranged between 2.63 and 3.45% while the actual field
capacity of the machine ranged between 0.16 and 0.19
ha.h-1. Digging efficiency was in the range of 89.66-93.23
per cent. A study conducted on comparative performance
of potato digger elevator with conventional method of
harvesting reported saving of 1280 man.h.ha-1 as compared
to manual harvesting (Singh et al., 2004).
Available literature is mostly related to mechanical
harvesting of vegetable crops like potato, onion, carrots,
etc. Therefore, it was proposed to design and develop a
tractor operated garlic harvester suitable under Indian
conditions.

1
M.Tech. Scholar, Division of Agricultural Engineering, IARI, New Delhi, 2,3 Principal Scientist, Division of Agricultural Engineering, IARI,
New Delhi. Corresponding author e-mail: dipankar_engg@iari.res.in

9
January - March, 2013 Design and Development of a Tractor Operated Garlic Harvester
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A tractor operated prototype harvester was designed for
digging of garlic plant from soil, transferring the dug mass
to a soil separator for removing soil mass from garlic plants,
and windrowing clean garlic plants at the rear with low
power requirement. Digging unit and soil separator were
the two important components of the garlic harvester from
design point of view.
Design of Digging Unit
The working depth of digging blade is an important
parameter, as it directly affects the power requirement of
garlic harvester. The working depth of digging blade mainly
depends upon the depth of garlic bulb in soil. By taking
into consideration the maximum depth of garlic bulb in
field (86 mm), it was decided to keep minimum depth of
operation at 120 mm.
The draft of share was calculated using the general soil
mechanics equation for a blade deforming the soil in two
dimensions (Hettiarachi, 1966), Eq. 1. It takes into account
different soil properties and tool geometry parameters as
following:
Pp = γ Z1 Nγ + CZ1Nc + CaZ1Nca + qZ1Nq ...……
2
(1)
Where,
Pp = Passive resistance of soil acting at an angle of soil-
metal friction with the normal to interface, kg per
meter width,
γ = Bulk density of soil, kg.m-3,
Z1 = Depth of operation, m,
C = Cohesion of soil, kg.m-2,
Ca = Soil-interaction adhesion, kg.m-2, and
q = Surcharge pressure on soil from surface above the
failure plane, kg.m-2.
Nγ, Nc , Nq and Nca are dimensionless N- factors, which
describe the shape of soil failure surface and are thus
function of angle of shearing resistance of soil (Φ), angle
of soil metal friction (δ) and geometry of loaded interface
i.e. rake angle (α).
Based on the above assumptions, Eq. 1 could be represented
as following:
Pp = γ Z12 Nγ + CZ1Nc ………. (2)
Following values for different parameters were used
for determination of passive resistance of the blade for
10
operation in sandy loam soil:
γ = 1450 kg.m-3, C = 710 kg.m-2, Φ = 25.58°, δ = 25.31°,
α = 15°, Z1 = 0.12 m
Using the relationships between Nγ and α when δ=0 and δ=
Φ, the value of N-factors were calculated as follows:
Nγ = 1.83, Nc = 1.68
Substituting the above values of Nγ and Nc in Eq. 2, the
passive resistance (Pp) per unit width of the blade was
obtained as 181.35 kg.m-1, or 81.61 kg for an effective width
of cut of 0.45 m of blade.
The passive resistance Pp was acting at an angle of friction
(δ) with normal to the interface, hence the component
parallel to the blade face (Pp1) was given as:
Pp1 = 81.61 x cos 70°
= 27.91 kg
The component perpendicular to the blade face (Pp2 ) was
given as
Pp2 = 81.61 x cos 20°
= 76.38 kg
The obtained value of Pp1 and Pp2 were used to determine
the bending moment of the digger blade.
Design of Digger Blade
Digger blade would execute initial digging of garlic plants
from soil along with soil mass. The width of digger blade
was an important factor, as it would cover all plant rows in
a bed without damaging the standing crop. The harvester
had to cover four rows of garlic plants at a row-to-row
distance of 150 mm and plant-to-plant distance of 75 mm.
Therefore, width of the digging blade was decided as 600
mm on the basis of the width of the bed. The blade thickness
was designed on the basis of load acting on it. This could
be determined theoretically analysing various forces acting
on the blade.
Pp2 is perpendicular component of Pp1, and would cause
bending moment whereas Pp1 is the horizontal component
that would induce direct stress in the blade. The force would
act at the centre of resistance of the blade. It was assumed
that average soil resistance of the blade acted at a distance
of 0.2z1 measured from the cutting edge (Bernacki, 1972),
Fig 1.
The centre of resistance was at a distance of 24 mm from
Khambe Vishal Krishna, Dipankar De and P. K. Sahoo JAE : 50 (1)
Fig. 1: Soil reactions acting on a simple digging share
the cutting edge on central axis of the width of blade. The
blade was supported on nuts and bolts at a distance of 200
mm from each side of the cutting edge, and thus the distance
between the centre of resistance and point of support was
176 mm.
The bending moment due to Pp2 (76.38 kg) is 13442.9
kg.mm.
Bending stress (σb) is represented as:
…(3)
Where,
B.M = Bending moment, kg.mm,
b = Width of blade at its point of mounting, mm, and
t = Thickness of blade, mm.
By solving Eqn. 3, the thickness of blade was determined
as 9.82 mm, or 10 mm.
Hence, thickness of the blade was kept as 10 mm, and the
total width of blade was kept as 600 mm as per requirement
of digging operation.
Design of Soil Separation Unit
The material dug by a digging unit was directly forwarded
to a separation unit. To separate the soil from garlic plant,
rods were arranged length-wise along the line of travel of the
harvester. Biometric properties (length of garlic plant, polar
and equatorial diameter of garlic bulb including volume of
soil sticking to bulb) of garlic plant (Krishna, 2012) were
used to determine the various dimensions of soil separator.
Rod spacing of 50 mm and length of soil separator of 1000
mm were accordingly decided. The soil separator’s slot was
11
fabricated using mild steel rods of 10 mm in diameter.
After deciding basic dimensions of major parts of the garlic
harvester, dimensions of other components were decided
accordingly. While deciding dimensions of components of
the harvester, both structural strength and cost economics
were considered. Isometric view of the tractor operated
prototype garlic harvester is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2: Isometric view of tractor operated prototype
garlic harvester
Prototype Garlic Harvester
A tractor drawn prototype garlic harvester was fabricated
in the Division of Agricultural Engineering, IARI, New
Delhi. The V-shaped (45 0 angle) digging blade was
fabricated with mild steel plate of 300 x 300 x 10 mm.
Two units of blade were joined together by two mild
steel flats of 600 x 50 x 8 mm to form a digger blade of
desired width of 600 mm.
The soil separator frame of 1000 mm length was made
with angle iron of 50 x 50 x 8 mm along both sides of the
unit. Two slots of mild steel rods of 10 mm diameter was
fabricated and attached along the direction of travel with
two mild steel flats of 650 x 50 x 8 mm across the length
of soil separator. Side support plates for guiding the dug
soil mass over the soil separator were fabricated with mild
steel flat of 900 x 100 x 10 mm.
The hitching arrangement was made of a square frame (65
x 65 mm) of 1200 mm in length along with mild steel plates
of 1600 x 125 x 16 mm. Two mild steel side supports (450
x 50 x 10 mm) were used to attach the main square frame
to the combined unit of digging blade and soil separator.
Major specifications of the harvester are given in Table 1.
The tractor drawn garlic harvester is shown in Fig. 3.
January - March, 2013 Design and Development of a Tractor Operated Garlic Harvester

Table 1. Constructional specifications of functional Performance Evaluation

components of garlic harvester The garlic harvester was evaluated under field conditions
(Fig. 4) in sandy loam soil at 12.75±0.68% soil moisture
Sl. No. Component Dimension, Material of
construction (d.b) and at speed of 1.5 km.h-1 for harvesting performance,
mm
damage percentage, soil separation index, power requirement
1. Overall length 1470 65 × 65 × 8 and field capacity in a test area of 800 m2. Field tests showed
mm that garlic harvesting percentage ranged between 94.12 and
width 1200
M.S. square 97.87% with mean of 96.12%.
height 1000 section
2. Digging unit
Length 300 MS flat:
Width 600
300 × 10 mm
Thickness 10 50 × 8 mm
Cutting blade 150
rake angle
3. Soil separator
Length 1000 MS angle iron:
Width 650 50 × 8 mm
MS flat:
Rod thickness 10 50 × 8 mm
Spacing between 50 100 × 10 mm
rods Fig. 4: Field evaluation of tractor operated garlic
MS rod: harvester
Number of rods 22 φ22mm

4. Hitching unit
Similarly, damage percentage, soil separation index and
Side frame for 450 MS flat: power requirement varied from 4.17 to 7.16%, 0.24 to
lower link 125 × 16 mm
0.31 and 4.18 to 4.66 kW with means of 5.94%, 0.26 and
Frame for top link 800 MS flat: 4.54 kW, respectively. Field capacity of the garlic harvester
125 × 16 mm was observed as 0.24 ha.h-1 with field efficiency of 68.7
5. Side support for 900 MS flat: per cent.
digging blade and 50 × 10 mm
soil separation unit CONCLUSIONS

A 4-row tractor operated garlic harvester was designed

Fig. 3: Tractor operated prototype garlic harvester
for harvesting with minimum plant damage and power
requirement. The digging unit, soil separator and frame of
the harvester were designed based on crop geometry and
strength of construction materials. The major specifications
of digging blade such as length, width and thickness were
kept as 300 mm, 600 mm and 10 mm, and for soil separation
unit as 1000 mm, 650 mm and 10 mm, respectively. Field
performance in sandy loam soil at 12.75±0.68% soil
moisture (d.b) and at speed of 1.5 km.h-1 indicated mean
harvesting percentage of 96.12%, plant damage of 5.94%,
soil separation index of 0.26, power requirement of 4.54
kW and field capacity of 0.24 ha.h-1 with field efficiency of
68.7 per cent.

12
Khambe Vishal Krishna, Dipankar De and P. K. Sahoo JAE : 50 (1)
REFERENCES
Anon. 2010. Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India. www.
moa.gov.in, visited on 14.8.2012.
Bernacki H; Haman J; Kanafojski Cz. 1972. Agricultural
machines, theory and construction. Vol. 1, Scientific
publication, Central Institute of Scientific, Technical and
Economic Information, Warsaw, Poland, 359-360.
Hettiaratchi D R P; Witney B D; Reece A R. 1966. The
calculation of passive pressure in two dimensional soil
failure. J. Agric. Eng. Res., 11(2), 89-107.
Jadhav R V; Turbatmath P A; Gharte L V. 1995.
Performance evaluation of a newly developed onion digger
windrower. J. Maharashtra Agric. Universities, 20(1), 112-
116.
13
Krishna K V. 2012. Studies on design parameters of
mechanical harvesting of garlic. Unpublished M. Tech.
Thesis, Division of Agricultural Engineering, I.A.R.I., N.
Delhi, pp: 80.
Padmanathan P K; Kathirvel K; Manian R; Duraisamy
V M. 2006. Design, development and evaluation of tractor
operated groundnut combine harvester. J. Applied Sci. Res.,
2(12), 1338-1341.
Shirwal S. 2010. Studies on design parameters for
mechanical harvesting of carrots. Unpublished M.Sc Thesis,
Division of Agricultural Engineering, Indian Agricultural
Research Institute, New Delhi.
Singh R D; Singh H M; Singh R D. 2004. Comparative
performance of potato digger elevator with conventional
method of harvesting at farmer’s fields. Potato J., 31(3-4),
159-164.
January - March, 2013 Osmotic Dehydration of Pineapple with Sucrose: Mass Transfer Kinetics
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Osmotic Dehydration of Pineapple with Sucrose:

Mass Transfer Kinetics
Devinder Dhingra1, Dattatreya M. Kadam2, Jasjit Singh3 and R. T. Patil4
Manuscript received: June, 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: February, 2013

ABSTRACT

Osmotic dehydration of pineapple (Ananas comosus Linn.) slices (6, 9 and 12 mm) was carried out using aqueous
solutions of sucrose of different concentrations (40, 50 and 60 % w/w) as osmotic media, at various fruit to solution
ratios (1:2, 1:4 and 1:6). Total mass, water loss, solute gain and moisture content were determined for each sample at
different time intervals (up to 6 h) of contact with the osmotic media. Regression analysis revealed that the osmotic
dehydration kinetics depends strongly on sucrose concentration and slice thickness. The water loss and solute gain
are more intensive at higher sucrose concentration and lower slice thickness. The effect of all the process parameters
was observed to be significant at 10% level on both water loss and solute gain. Penetration and Magee model was
fitted to the experimental data. Magee model was observed to represent water loss and solute gain more accurately
as compared to Penetration model.

Key words: Sucrose concentration, slice thickness, water loss, solute gain, model

Pineapple (Ananas Comosus Linn.) is one of the commercially
important fruit crops of tropical world. Pineapple fruits have
characteristic of pleasant flavour, distinct aroma, exquisite
taste and absence of seeds. It is a good source of carotene
and ascorbic acid, and is fairly rich in vitamin B and B2.
Osmotic dehydration is a method for partial removal of
water from plant tissues by immersion in a hypertonic
(osmotic) solution. The driving force for diffusion of water
from the tissue into the solution is provided by higher
osmotic pressure of the hypertonic solution (Rastogi and
Raghavarao, 2004). The diffusion of water is accompanied
by the simultaneous counter diffusion of solute from the
osmotic solution into the tissue. Since the membrane
responsible for osmotic transport is not perfectly selective,
other solutes present in the cells can also be leached into
the osmotic solution. The rate of diffusion of water from
any material made up of such tissues depends upon factors
as temperature and concentration of osmotic solution,
size and geometry of material, solution to material mass
ratio, and level of agitation of the solution (Bongirwar and
Sreenivasan, 1977; Pokharkar and Prasad, 1998; Kadam
and Dhingra, 2011). The water loss from and solute gain by
aonla increased non-linearly with duration of osmosis at all
sugar concentrations, and both increased faster in the initial
period of osmosis than in the later stage. The two-parameter
models satisfactorily described the mass transfer kinetics
in the osmotic dehydration process of aonla slices at any
time when other conditions of osmosis were kept constant
(Alam and Singh, 2008). Effect of various parameters such
as concentration of sucrose, concentration of salt, solution
temperature and time on water loss and taste of litchi has
been studied (Kumar et al., 2009). Osmotic dehydration
processes are normally designed with the aim of maximizing
water removal, meanwhile restraining solid uptake to obtain
a product whose taste and flavour have little changes in
respect to that of the fresh food. The ratio of water loss to
solid uptake is a good index of efficiency of the process.
The objectives of the present study were to investigate the
osmotic dehydration kinetics of pineapple slices in sucrose
solution having different process conditions, and to model
the mechanism of the process.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Raw Material
Giant Kew variety of pineapple was procured from the local
market of Ludhiana (India). Fruits of similar ripeness (7
to 8° Brix), having uniform visual quality were selected.
Pineapple fruits were peeled and cored manually with
stainless steel knife. Edible portion, 35-40 % of the whole
fruit, was cut into uniform slices having 6, 9 and 12 mm
thickness. The initial moisture content of the pineapple

1
KAB II, ICAR, Pusa Campus, New Delhi-110012; 2Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology, Ludhiana-141 004, e-mail:
kadam1k@yahoo.com; 3Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal, Punjab; 4Central Institute of Post-Harvest
Engineering and Technology, Ludhiana-141 004

14
Devinder Dhingra, Dattatreya M. Kadam, Jasjit Singh, R. T. Patil JAE : 50 (1)
slices varied from 91 to 93 per cent.
Osmotic Dehydration Process
Osmotic dehydration was carried out in the sucrose solution
having different concentrations. The effect of different
parameters, such as sucrose solution concentration, slice
thickness, process duration and fruit-to-solution ratio
were studied. To study the effect of osmotic solution
concentration (40, 50, 60 % w/w sugar syrup) and process
duration (0-300 min) on the mass transfer kinetics, slice
thickness of 9 mm and fruit-to-solution ratio of 1:4 were
maintained. Similarly, to study the effect of slice thickness
(6mm, 9 mm and 12 mm), the solution concentration was
maintained at 50 % w/w and the fruit-to-solution ratio at
1:4. To study the effect of fruit-to-solution ratio (1:2, 1:4,
and 1:6), the solution concentration was maintained at 50
% w/w and the thickness at 9 mm. Samples were taken at
different time intervals of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4 and 6 h. To
study the effect of each variable, experiment was conducted
with 3 replications at each condition.
Osmotic Dehydration Parameter
Two quantities adequately represent the osmotic process:
water loss (WL) indicating the water that diffuses from the
fruit to the solution, and the solute gain (SG). The solute
gain represents the amount of solids that diffuses from the
solution to the fruit.
The water loss (WL) and the solute gain (SG) of fruit after
time ‘t’ of osmotic treatment are defined as (Singh et al.,
2007):
… (1)
… (2)
Where,
M0 = Initial mass of fresh fruit before the osmotic
treatment,g,
M = Mass of pineapple after time ‘t’ of osmotic
treatment, g,
m = Dry mass of pineapple after time ‘t’ of osmotic
treatment, g, and
m0 = Dry mass of fresh fruit, g.
Empirical Models for Osmotic Dehydration
Penetration model and Magee model were used to study
the mass transfer kinetics during osmotic dehydration of
pineapple slices.
15
According to Penetration model,
… (3)
For Magee model,
… (4)
Where K, A and B are empirical constants, and‘t’ is time
of osmotic treatment.
Statistical Analysis
Regression analysis of the experimental data was carried
out to observe the significance of the effect of various
process parameters on water loss and solute gain during
osmotic dehydration using Statistica and SPSS software.
The relative effect of each process parameter was compared
from the β values corresponding to that of a parameter. The
β coefficients were the regression coefficients obtained by
first standardizing the process variables to a mean of zero
and standard deviation of one. The advantage of using β
coefficient (as compared to B coefficients which are not
standardized) was that the magnitudes of these values
allowed to compare the relative contribution of each
independent variable in the prediction of dependent variable.
Higher the positive value of β of a parameter, higher would
be the effect of that parameter, and vice-versa.
For checking the validity of empirical models for all the
osmotic dehydration processes, regression analysis was
performed. In addition to coefficient of correlation (R²) and
root mean square error (RMSE), the mean relative deviation
modulus (E%) was also used to select the model to account
for variation in osmotic drying of the samples. The best
model was chosen as one with the highest coefficient of
correlation (R²), and least RMSE and E%.
100 n Experimenta l value − predicted value
E (%) = ×∑
n Experimenta l value
i =1
… (5)
The value of E less than 5.0 indicates an excellent fit,
whereas values greater than 10 are indicative of poor fit.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Mass Transfer Kinetics during Osmotic Dehydration
The effects of various process parameters on kinetics of
water loss and solute gain during osmotic dehydration of
pineapple slices are discussed below.
January - March, 2013 Osmotic Dehydration of Pineapple with Sucrose: Mass Transfer Kinetics

Effect of syrup concentration on osmotic dehydration

Water loss and solute gain were observed to increase with
an increase in sugar concentration (Fig.1). The increase in
water loss and solute gain might be due to the synergistic
effect of sugar to develop high osmotic potential. Ade–
Omowaye et al. (2002); Marani et al. (2006); Barat et al.
(2001); Sutar and Gupta (2007) and Chenlo et al. (2007)
also observed similar effect of concentration of osmotic
solution.

Fig. 2: Effect of slice thickness with 50% w/w sucrose

solution and fruit-to-syrup ratio of 1:4

Fig. 1: Effect of sucrose concentration with 9mm slice

thickness and fruit-to-syrup ratio of 1:4

Effect of pineapple slice thickness on water loss and

solute gain
It was observed that the size of fruit samples had a negative
effect on the water loss and solute gain (Fig. 2). Same effects
were observed by Agnelli et al. (2005), where the water
loss and solute gain were more in apple cubes of 15 mm as
compared to 20 mm during osmotic dehydration. In case of
thinner slices, the distance to be travelled by water to reach
the fruit surface was smaller causing higher water loss in
thinner slices. Higher solute gain occurred due to increased
flow of sucrose solution to the fruit slice.
Effect of fruit-to-solution ratio on water loss and solute
gain
There was an increase in water loss and solute gain with
increase of fruit-to-solution ratio as shown in Fig. 3. Singh
et al. (2007) also studied the effect of different sample
to solution ratio’s (1:2, 1:4 and 1:6) on the mass transfer
kinetics of carrots, and observed that there was an increase
in water loss and solute gain with increase of fruit-to-
solution ratio. This behaviour could be explained on the
basis that water loss and solute gain took longer time to
Fig. 3: Effect of fruit-to-solution ratio with 50% w/w
sugar solution and slice thickness of 9mm
acquire equilibrium during osmotic dehydration. Pokharkar
and Prasad (1998) also reported increased rate of water loss
and solute gain with increase of solution-to-fruit ratio.
Statistical Analysis
Table 1 indicates that osmotic solution concentration, fruit-
to-syrup ratio and time had positive effect on the water loss
and solute gain, whereas slice thickness had negative effect.
During the osmotic dehydration process, the effect of all the
process parameters was observed to be significant at 10%
level of significance on both water loss and solute gain.
Empirical Models for Osmotic Dehydration
In the experiments on osmotic dehydration, the values of
R² were high in the case of Magee model. From Tables 2
and 3, it was observed that the Magee model represented
the experimental data with more accuracy. Magee model

16
Devinder Dhingra, Dattatreya M. Kadam, Jasjit Singh, R. T. Patil JAE : 50 (1)

Table 1. Regression summary for water loss (%) and solute gain (%)

Water Loss, R² = 0.917, Solute Gain, R² = 0.944,

F (4,44)=120.89 F (4,44)=186.93
β B p-Level β B p-Level
Intercept 12.2635 0.0010 -2.1499 0.0799
Concentration 0.2581 0.3316 0.0000 0.4493 0.2432 0.0000
Thickness - 0.4689 -2.0083 0.0000 -0.3566 -0.6436 0.0000
Ratio 0.1416 0.9096 0.0022 0.1792 0.4850 0.000008
Time 0.7811 3.0117 0.0000 0.7637 1.2406 0.0000

Table 2. Regression coefficients and statistical parameters for water loss and solute gain of Magee model

Exp. Concentration Thickness Ratio Water loss Solute gain

No. (%) (mm)
A B R² E% RMSE A B R² E% RMSE
I 40 9 4 7.233 8.062 0.99 2.09 0.29 1.724 3.523 0.97 4.79 0.16
II 50 9 4 8.198 8.802 0.99 1.78 0.27 3.473 3.817 0.98 3.03 0.11
III 60 9 4 10.37 10.38 0.98 2.12 0.74 4.127 5.159 0.96 4.08 0.48
IV 50 6 4 8.723 13.70 0.97 4.20 2.29 4.296 4.741 0.99 2.63 0.14
V 50 12 4 3.682 9.042 0.99 2.26 0.18 2.705 3.232 0.99 2.28 0.46
VI 50 9 2 4.039 9.961 0.98 4.81 0.96 2.162 4.011 0.99 2.01 0.04
VII 50 9 6 8.788 9.223 0.98 2.30 0.58 4.216 3.934 0.99 1.43 0.04

Table 3. Regression coefficients and statistical parameters for water loss of Penetration model

Exp. Concentration Thickness Ratio Water loss Solute gain

No. (%) (mm)
K R² E% RSME K R² E% RSME
I 40 9 4 12.293 0.68 12.99 7.59 4.532 0.88 9.19 0.55
II 50 9 4 13.597 0.66 13.06 9.68 5.846 0.67 12.92 1.78
III 60 9 4 16.451 0.60 13.29 15.75 7.573 0.72 12.58 2.79
IV 50 6 4 18.803 0.82 10.73 12.68 7.254 0.67 12.09 2.71
V 50 12 4 11.195 0.93 7.60 2.05 4.813 0.72 12.36 1.07
VI 50 9 2 12.323 0.92 7.15 3.09 5.275 0.88 8.66 0.69
VII 50 9 6 14.363 0.64 12.97 11.33 6.4 0.55 14.14 2.53

had an excellent fit as compared to Penetration model with
lower values of E (%). Similar results were reported by
Pokharkar and Prasad (1998), Kar and Gupta (2001) and
Singh et al. (2007).
CONCLUSIONS
Sucrose concentration and slice thickness were the most
significant factors affecting water loss and solute gain
during osmotic dehydration of pineapple. Water loss and
solute gain increased with increase in concentration of
sucrose solution, and reduction in slice thickness. Water
loss and solute gain increased with process duration (time)
under all the conditions. Magee model adequately described
the experimental values of water loss and solute gain as
compared to the Penetration model. The process of osmotic
dehydration can be used for the preparation of shelf-stable
products for the purpose of use during off-season.
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Knorr D. 2002. Osmotic dehydration of bell peppers:
influence of high intensity electric field pulses and elevated
temperature treatment. J. Food Eng., 54, 35-43.

17
January - March, 2013 Osmotic Dehydration of Pineapple with Sucrose: Mass Transfer Kinetics
Agnelli M E; Marani C M; Mascheroni R H. 2005.
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Kumar V; Kumar G; Sharma P D. 2009.Effect of osmo-
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Rastogi N K; Raghavarao K S M S. 2004. Mass transfer
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Fickian diffusion in cubical configuration. LWT-Food Sci.
Technol., 37(1), 43-47.
Singh B; Kumar A; Gupta A K. 2007. Study of mass
transfer kinetics and effective diffusivity during osmotic
dehydration of carrot cubes. J. Food Eng., 79 (2), 471-
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V.Chandrasekar, R.Kailappan, R.Kasthuri and K.Rajamani JAE : 50 (1)
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Moisture Dependent Physical and Thermal

Properties of Coleus Tuber
V. Chandrasekar1, R. Kailappan2*, R. Kasthuri2 and K. Rajamani3
Manuscript received: April, 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: February, 2013

ABSTRACT

Some important physical and thermal properties of coleus tubers were determined in the moisture range of 466.62 to
21.52% (d.b). Selected physical properties namely weight, size; bulk density, particle density and porosity increased
with increase in moisture content. Thermal properties viz. specific heat and thermal conductivity increased with
increase in moisture content while thermal diffusivity recorded a decreasing trend.

Key words: Coleus tuber, physical properties, thermal properties, moisture content

Coleus (Coleus forskohlii), belonging to the family Labiatae
(Lamiaceae), is a short duration medicinal plant. Coleus is a
subtropical and warm temperature crop, naturally growing
at 600-1800 m elevation from mean sea level. It can grow
well in sun light exposed hill slopes and plateaus, arid and
semiarid climatic zones having a temperature of 10-25oC
and a relative humidity of 85-95 per cent. Coleus tuber
contains forskolin, an active principal component. Forskolin
is a Di-terpenoid compound used in the preparation of
several ayurvedic medicines. Forskolin has multiple
pharmacological effects, and it is an activator of adenylate
cyclase. Coleus tubers are used in Indian folk medicines as
a traditional digestive remedy. If proper cultivation practices
are followed, it yields up to 2000 to 2200 kg.ha-1 (Rajamani
and Vadivel, 2009). However, an average dry tuber yield
of 800 to 1000 kg.ha-1 may be obtained easily. This crop
is gaining importance in pharmaceutical industry due to
its therapeutic potential, and has growing demand in the
international market. According to reports, herbal medicines
exports from India have increased from Rs. 460 crores in
1995 to 1,200 crores in 2000. Coleus contains more than
80% (w.b.) moisture content. It cannot be stored for longer
period due to its high moisture content.
Physical and other engineering properties are mainly
needed for the design of processing machines for various
unit operations such as cleaning, sorting, grading, and
drying. Mean diameters and cylindricity of the tubers are
used in designing of material handling, sorting and sieving
equipments. Bulk and true densities are used to find out the
capacities of conveyors, storage silos, drier capacities and
to calculate the dimensions of the drying chamber. Porosity
determines the air flow rate requirement for drying of the
material, and less porous materials need more air flow rate
to uniformly remove moisture to avoid hardening of tubers.
Thermal properties of coleus tubers are used to select the
heating coil and to find the air requirement for drying. Many
researchers have reported physical properties of biological
materials. Some of such studies include determination of
1000 kernal weight, bulk density, particle density, porosity
for Makhana (Jha, 1999); mean bean mass, sphericity, bulk
density, particle density and porosity of category B cocoa
beans as a function of bean moisture content (Bart-Plange
and Baryeh, 2003); size, 1000 seed weight, true density,
bulk density, porosity of locust bean seed (Ogunjimi et
al., 2002); 1000 seed mass, grain surface area, volume,
sphericity, true density, bulk density and porosity of pigeon
pea as a function of grain moisture content (Baryeh and
Mangope, 2003); length, width, height, sphericity, surface
area, geometric and arithmetic mean diameters of Iranian
pistachio varieties as a function of moisture content (Razavi
et al., 2007). Bulk density, true density, angle of repose,
coefficient of friction on metal surfaces, specific heat,
thermal diffusivity and conductivity of gorgon nut were
determined by Jha and Prasad (1993).

1
Assistant Professor (Senior Grade), email: chandrufpe@gmail.com, Department of Food Technology, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai,
Erode, India; 2*Professor, corresponding author, email: kailappan@yahoo.com; 2Professor, Department of Food and Agricultural Process
Engineering, Agricultural Engineering College and Research Institute, TamilNadu Agricultural university, Coimbatore, India; 3Professor,
Department of Spices and Plantation Crops, Horticultural College and Research Institute, TamilNadu Agricultural university, Coimbatore,
India.

19
January - March, 2013 Moisture Dependent Physical and Thermal Properties of Coleus Tubers
Mean thermal conductivity and mean thermal diffusivity
of Timothy hay was studied by Opoku et al. (2006).
Thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity and thermal
diffusivity of borage (Borago officinalis) seeds were
determined at different moisture contents by Yang et al.
(2002). Present investigation was carried out to determine
the size (minor diameter, major and medium), geometric
and arithmetic mean diameters, sphericity, cylindricity,
gravimetric properties (unit mass, true density, bulk density
and porosity) and thermal properties (specific heat, thermal
conductivity and thermal diffusion) of coleus tuber.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Raw Material
Freshly harvested coleus tubers were obtained from farmers
at Kallakurichi, Attur and Salem of Tamil Nadu, India. The
tubers were cleaned manually to remove soil, dirt, broken
and other foreign matters.
Physical Parameters
Moisture content and mean diameters
The moisture content of tubers was determined as per
AOAC method. Physical properties of coleus tubers were
examined at different moisture contents. One hundred and
fifty tubers were randomly selected and their dimensions
in three principal axes were determined, as reported
by Mohsenin (1980), Shepherd and Bhardwaj (1986),
Kaleemullah (1992), Deshpande et al.(1993), Chandrasekar
and Viswanathan (1999), Aviara et al. (1999). The
dimensions were measured using a vernier caliper having
a least count of 0.10 mm. The arithmetic mean diameter
Da and geometric mean diameter Dg of the tubers were
calculated using the following relationships:
(a + b + c)
Da =
3 … (1)
1
Dg = (abc )3
… (2)
Where,
Da = Arithmetic mean diameter, mm,
Dg = Geometric mean diameter, mm,
a = Major diameter, mm,
b = Medium diameter, mm, and
c = Minor diameter, mm.
20
Tuber shape
The shape of tubers can be expressed in the form of
cylindricity. Cylindricity measures cylindrical nature of
the solid material. Cylindricity of tubers was calculated
by tracing shadow graphs of thirty tubers in two mutually
perpendicular positions on a graph sheet as reported by
Kaleemullah (2002). The diameters of the largest inscribing
and the smallest circumscribing cylinders of the traced view
are measured from the shadow graphs. The cylindricity
(C) in decimal was calculated by using the following
relationship:
1
 V 3
C =  i 
 Vc  … (3)
Where,
Vi = Volume of the largest inscribed cylinder, cm3,
and
Vc = Volume of the smallest circumscribed cylinder,
cm3.
Density
The mass of randomly selected 150 tubers were weighed
on an electronic balance having a least count of 0.01g. The
mean mass of 150 tubers at different moisture contents was
calculated. Bulk density was calculated from the mass of
bulk sample divided by the volume of the mass:
… (4)
Where, ρb is bulk density (kg.m ), M is mass of the sample
-3
(kg), and V is volume of the container (m3).
True density is defined as the ratio of a given mass of
sample to its true volume. It was determined by toluene
displacement method. True density was determined by
calculating the average of 150 tubers.
Porosity
Porosity (ε) of the bulk tubers is the ratio of the volume
of internal pores in the tubers to its bulk volume, and
was determined using following relationship (Mohsenin,
1980):
 r 
e = 1 − b  * 100
 rt 
…(5)
Where, ε is porosity (%), ρb is bulk density, (kg.m-3), and
ρt is true density (kg.m-3).
V.Chandrasekar, R.Kailappan, R.Kasthuri and K.Rajamani JAE : 50 (1)
Thermal Properties
Specific heat
Specific heat of coleus tubers was determined as reported
by Sreenarayanan and Chattopadhyay (1986) using steam
heater and calorimeter. The method of mixtures was
followed to measure the specific heat. In this method, the
specific heat of the sample was determined by equating
the heat lost by the hot sample in the water to the heat
gained by the water from the hot sample. The apparatus
used to determine specific heat consists of steam heater
and calorimeter. The steam heater consisted of a cylindrical
brass vessel, fitted with an inner tube. This inner tube was
placed such that the inlet provided at the top of the steam
heater and the outlet along the sideways was connected
with adequate slope to discharge the sample after heating.
Another cylindrical brass tube was fitted in this vessel.
The bottom of the brass tube was cut exactly close the
obtuse-angled bend of the brass vessel. This tube was
used for quick transfer of material from the heater to the
calorimeter. Inside the steam heater, the space other than
the brass vessel was filled with water. Water was heated
by placing the steamer on a heater. Samples cut into small
pieces and placed inside the brass vessel was heated by the
hot water. A calorimeter made up of copper fitted with a
stirrer was used in this study. The calorimeter was closed
with a bakelite lid with provision to place a thermometer.
The temperature of the sample was recorded periodically
till it reached a constant level. The weight of the empty
calorimeter with stirrer, and with 3/4th of volume of water
was noted. The temperature of the water in the calorimeter
was also recorded. The samples from the steam heater
was transferred to the calorimeter, closed immediately, the
mixture stirred, and the steady temperature recorded. The
specific heat of the Coleus forskohlii tuber was calculated
using the formula:
(W3 − W2 )C pw (t2 − t3 ) + W1SC (t3 − t1 )
C pt =
(W2 − W1 ) (t3 − t1 )
Where,
Cpt = Specific heat of tuber, kj.kg.-1.K-1,
W1 = Mass of empty calorimeter and stirrer, kg,
W2 = Mass of calorimeter, stirrer and water, kg,
W3 = Mass of calorimeter, stirrer, water and sample,
kg,
Sc = Specific heat of calorimeter, kj.kg.-1.K-1,
Cpw = Specific heat of water, kj.kg.-1.K-1,
t1 = Initial temperature of water, 0K,
t2 = Temperature of sample, 0K, and
t3 = Final temperature of water, 0K.
Thermal conductivity
Thermal conductivity of coleus tubers was determined
using the transient heat flow method in a line heat source
apparatus. It consisted of a polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
cylinder of 140 mm diameter provided with 265 mm long
26 standard wire gauge thick nichrome heating wire placed
at the centre of the cylinder acting as line heat source. This
apparatus is similar to the one used by Sreenarayanan et al.
(1988) for determination of thermal conductivity of soya
bean. The resistance of the heating wire was 12.66 Ω.m-1.
Nickel–chromium thermocouple junction was kept in
contact with the heating wire at its mid-point. The heating
element was powered with 20 V DC by a variable DC
power supply unit. A rheostat was used to vary the current
flow. A current flow of 2A was supplied to the heater wire.
Samples were filled in the cylinder and care was taken to
ensure uniform bulk density and allowed to equilibrate.
The initial temperature and increase in temperature at every
one min interval was noted for 10 min. From the rise in
temperature with respect to time, the time correction factor
t0 was determined. The rise in temperature with time was
plotted in a graph sheet. At each time, slope of the curve was
noted, and inverse of this slope plotted with time axis was
found as time correction factor to. The thermal conductivity
values at 1st and 9th min as well as 2nd and 10th min were
calculated as given in equation (7):
…(7)
Where,
K = Thermal conductivity, W.m-1.K-1,
Q = I2R,
I = Current, ampere,
…(6) R = Resistance of heating probe, ohm.m-1,
t1, and t2 = Time corresponding to temperatures T1 and T2,
s, and
t0 = Time correction factor, s.
Thermal diffusivity
Thermal diffusivity was calculated by using the following
equation (Mohsenin, 1980):
K
µ=
r b × Clm …(8)
21
January - March, 2013 Moisture Dependent Physical and Thermal Properties of Coleus Tubers

Where, of coleus tuber showing a decrease in moisture content

µ = Thermal diffusivity, m .s ,2 -1 resulting in decrease in mean weight of tuber. Similar trends
were reported by Shepherd and Bharadwaj (1986), Dutta
K = Thermal conductivity, W.m.-1.K-1,
et al. (1988) and Aviara et al. (1999) for pigeon pea, gram
ρb = Bulk density of tuber, kg.m-3, and and guna seeds, respectively. It was also observed that the
Clm = Specific heat of tuber, J.kg-1.K-1. change in mass content (y) had a linear relationship with
moisture content (m) as expressed in the equation (9):
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
y = 0.008m+0.271 (R2 = 0.997) …(9)
Physical Properties
Mean diameters
Diameters of the coleus tuber were measured along three
axes before (466.62% d.b.) and after drying (21.52% d.b.),
and the results are reported in Table 1. It was observed
that the average major, medium and minor diameters were
16.57, 14.10 and 9.61 mm, respectively, before drying and
14.20, 11.32 and 7.68 mm, respectively, after drying. The
reduction in moisture content that occurred during drying
resulted in the contraction of tubers and recorded a decrease
in the dimensions of diameters in different axes. Among the
three axes, the decrease was maximum in the minor axis
(20.08%) and minimum in the major axis (14.30%). The
mean diameter of coleus tubers was calculated by arithmetic Fig. 1: Effect of moisture content on weight of coleus
and geometric mean. Arithmetic and geometric mean varied tuber
from 13.43 to 11.06 and 13.06 to 10.70 mm for the change
in the moisture content, respectively. The arithmetic and Tuber shape
geometric mean diameters were also affected by drying.
Mean value of cylindricity of coleus tubers was calculated
Similar results were observed in groundnut kernel by
from the measured volume of two mutually perpendicular
Kaleemullah (1992).
axes. Coleus tubers had a mean cylindricity of 0.67 and 0.63
Fig. 1 depicts the effect of moisture content on weight before and after drying, respectively, showing a reduction

Table 1. Overall effect of moisture content on different physical properties of coleus tuber

Sl. No. Physical property Initial value Final value Difference, %

1. Moisture content, % db 466.62 21.52 95.39
2. Weight, kg 3960 400 89.90
3. Major diameter (a) , mm 16.57 14.20 14.30
4. Medium diameter (b) , mm 14.10 11.32 19.72
5. Minor diameter (c) , mm 9.61 7.68 20.08
6. Arithmetic mean diameter, mm 13.43 11.06 17.65
7. Geometric mean diameter, mm 13.06 10.70 18.07
8. Cylindricity 0.67 0.63 4.64
9. Bulk density, kg.m -3
432.26 233.65 45.95
10. True density, kg.m-3 484.03 299.12 38.20
11. Porosity, % 11.60 5.30 54.31

22
V.Chandrasekar, R.Kailappan, R.Kasthuri and K.Rajamani JAE : 50 (1)

by 4.64 per cent. Similar trend was reported for groundnut

kernel by Kaleemullah (1992).

Density
Bulk density of coleus tubers decreased from 432.26 to
233.65 kg.m-3 with moisture content decrease from 466.62
to 21.52% (d.b.) after drying (Fig. 2). The decrease in
bulk density by 45.95% was due to volumetric contraction
of tubers during drying. Similar trends were reported for
pistachio seed by Hsu et al. (1991), pumpkin seeds and
kernel by Joshi et al. (1993), karingada seed and kernel by
Suthar and Das (1996). From the study, it was observed that
Fig. 3: Effect of moisture content on true density of
the moisture content of coleus tubers established a linear
coleus tuber
relationship with its bulk density as shown in equation
(10):
Porosity
ρb = 0.505 m+221.6 (R2 = 0.980) …(10)
Porosity of coleus tubers decreased from 11.6 to 5.3%
with decrease in moisture content from 466.62 to 21.52%
(d.b.), Fig. 4. Decrease in porosity was due to contraction
of tubers during drying. The effect of moisture content on
porosity of coleus tubers followed a linear relationship as
given by equation (12):

e = 0.017 m + 4.356 (R2 = 0.986) … (12)

Where, e is porosity and m is per cent moisture content (dry

basis) of coleus tuber. Similar trends were reported for lentil
seeds by Carman (1996), pumpkin seed and kernel by Joshi
et al. (1993) and for gram by Dutta et al. (1988).

Fig. 2: Effect of moisture content on bulk density of Overall effect of moisture content on different physical
coleus tuber properties of coleus tuber is presented in Table 1. In general,
decrease in moisture content in coleus tuber resulted in
decrease in values of different physical properties. Drying
Where ρb is bulk density (kg.m-3) and m is per cent moisture resulted in the contraction of coleus tuber size. The effect
content of coleus tuber on dry basis. True density similarly was more on the minor axis as compared to the major
decreased from 484.03 to 299.12 kg.m-3 when the moisture
content of tuber decreased from 466.62 to 21.52% (d.b.)
during drying. Fig. 3 shows the effect of moisture content
on true density of coleus tuber. The reduction in true density
due to drying was 38.20 per cent. This was caused by
volumetric contraction of coleus tuber due to drying. The
relationship between true density and change in moisture
content was in linear form as given by equation (11):

ρt = 0.522 m+262.7 (R2 = 0.969) …(11)

Where ρt is true density (kg.m-3 ), and m is per cent moisture

content of coleus tuber on dry basis. Similar trends were
reported for pistachio seeds by Hsu et al. (1991), pumpkin
seed and kernel by Joshi et al. (1993), karingada seed and Fig. 4: Effect of moisture content on porosity of coleus
kernel by Suthar and Das (1996). tuber

23
January - March, 2013 Moisture Dependent Physical and Thermal Properties of Coleus Tubers

axis. The drying process lowered the bulk density and true
density of coleus tuber from 432.26 to 233.65 kg.m-3 and
484.03 to 299.12 kg.m-3, respectively, due to decrease in
moisture content from 466.62 to 21.52% (d.b.). However,
the magnitude of changes in various physical properties
were different.

Thermal Properties
Specific heat
Specific heat of coleus tubers was found to vary between
6.18 and 3.84 kJ.kg-1.K-1 with moisture range from 466.62
to 21.52% (d.b.) at 35 °C, Fig. 5. Specific heat changed
with the change in moisture content (% d.b.) and can be Fig. 6: Effect of moisture content on thermal conductivity
expressed in the form of a regression equation (13): of coleus tuber

y = 0.004 m+3.851 (R2 = 0.969) …(13)

Where, y is thermal conductivity (W.m.-1.K-1), and m is per
cent moisture content on dry basis. Similar trends have been
reported for borage seed (Yang et al., 2002) and for timothy
hay (Opoku et al., 2006).

Thermal diffusivity
Thermal diffusivity of coleus tubers was determined in
the moisture range of 466.62 to 21.52% (d.b.) at 30±5 °C.
The relationship between thermal diffusivity and moisture
content is depicted in Fig. 7. Thermal diffusivity was
found to vary between 1.26×10-8 and 10.34×10-8 m2.s-1 for
change in moisture content between 466.62 and 21.52%
Fig. 5: Effect of moisture content on specific heat of (d.b.). The relationship between thermal diffusivity (m2.s-1)
coleus tuber and moisture content (%, d.b.) was found to be linear and
represented by an equation (15):

Where, y is specific heat (kJ.kg-1.K-1), and m is per cent
moisture content on dry basis. The decrease in specific heat
with decrease in moisture content might be due to lower
specific heat value of dry matter content of coleus tubers as
compared to water. Similar trends have been reported for
borage seeds (Yang et al., 2002).
y= -0.020 m+9.868 (R2=0.971) …(15)
Where, y is thermal diffusivity (m2.s-1) and m is per cent
moisture content on dry basis. Verma and Prasad (2000)
reported that the thermal diffusivity of maize increased with

Thermal conductivity
Thermal conductivity of coleus tuber was determined
experimentally in the moisture range of 466.62 to 21.52%
(d.b.) at 30±5 °C and shown in Fig. 6. From the figure, it
is seen that the thermal conductivity of coleus tubers lied
between 0.46 and 0.08 W.m.-1.K-1. The change in thermal
conductivity with change in moisture content was found
to have a linear relationship as given in the regression
equation (14):

y = 0.0008 m+0.1073 (R2 = 0.9807) …(14) Fig. 7: Effect of moisture content on thermal diffusivity
of coleus tuber

24
V.Chandrasekar, R.Kailappan, R.Kasthuri and K.Rajamani JAE : 50 (1)
increase in moisture content up to 40% (d.b.). Similar trends
have also been reported for borage seeds (Yang et al., 2002)
and for timothy hay (Opoku et al., 2006).
The effect of moisture content on different thermal properties
of coleus tuber revealed that both specific heat and thermal
conductivity followed a direct linear relationship with
moisture content. However, in case of thermal diffusivity,
the relationship with moisture content was linearly inverse
i.e. drying resulted in decrease in moisture content, which
caused increase in thermal diffusivity.
CONCLUSIONS
Drying of coleus tuber reduced its moisture content from
466.62 to 21.52% (d.b.), and affected the selected physical
properties at different levels. The changes in major diameter
(16.57 to 14.20), medium diameter (14.10 to 11.32), minor
diameter (9.61 to 7.68) occurred with reduction in moisture
content. The arithmetic mean diameter and geometric mean
diameter were similarly 13.43 to 11.06 and 13.06 to 10.70,
respectively. The change in shape of the tuber, expressed as
cylindricity, changed from 0.67 to 0.63. Moisture content
of coleus tuber established a linear relationship with
different physical properties namely bulk density (432.26
to 233.65), true density (484.03 to 299.12) and porosity
(11.6 to 5.3%) with a high regression value of 0.98, 0.96
and 0.98, respectively. The change in moisture content also
established a linear and direct relationship with specific heat
(6.18 to 3.84 KJ.kg-1.K-1) and thermal conductivity (0.46 to
0.08 W.m-1.K-1), and inverse linear relationship with thermal
diffusivity (1.26×10-8 to 10.34×10-8 m2.s-1) signifying that
the physical and thermal properties of coleus tubers changed
during drying.
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26
Krishna Kumar Patel, S. A. Liaquati, M. A. Khan, P. S. Minz JAE : 50 (1)
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Effect of Carrot Powder on Quality of Multipurpose

Flour based Snack Food
Krishna Kumar Patel1, S. A. Liaquati2, M. A. Khan2 and P. S. Minz3
Manuscript received: October, 2010 Revised manuscript accepted: December, 2012

ABSTRACT

Different combinations of multipurpose flour (flour of rice, wheat and Bengal gram) and three levels of carrot
powder (2.5, 5 and 7.5 %) were used for the preparation of fried snack food (sev). The physico-chemical and sensory
quality of snack food was evaluated. The fat content ranged between 24 – 35%, moisture content 1.0 – 2.2%, TBA
0.065 – 0.085, FFA 0.26 –0.34%, PV 3.25 – 4.30, pH 7.2 –7.6, hardness 13.32 to 28.92N, while log cfu.g-1 (total
plate count) was non-detectable. The prediction equations were also developed.

Key words: Snacks, carrot, multipurpose flour, fried, Sev

Sev, an Indian traditional deep-fat fried snack food, is
popular throughout the country due to its versatility and
use as an integral part of diet. Since snack foods include
everything from chips to confectionary; salty to sweet, they
are popular in all age groups and may be consumed every
meal time, or in between (Hollingsworth, 1995). In India,
organized snack food production is mainly confined to
deep-fat fried snacks such as potato chips and flour based
extruded snacks. Expanded snacks are the other category
manufactured by the organized sector. Deep-fat fried snacks
are in increasing demand with growing population and
international interest. Consequently, the market of nutritious
snack foods is also increasing across the world. The Indian
food market is already estimated at over US$ 182 billion
(Rs. 1530 crore) in 2005 (Anon, 2008), and accounts for
about two-third of the total Indian retail market.According
to consultancy firm, McKinsey & Co, the retail food sector
in India is likely to grow from around US$ 70 billion in
2008 to US$ 150 billion by 2025, accounting for a large
chunk of the world food industry, which would grow to US$
400 billion from US$ 175 billion by 2025 (Anon, 2009).
Though, the Indian snack food market is one of the largest
in the world, the share of organised sector accounts only
for half of the market.
Wheat flour is one of the best sources of protein, minerals
and vitamins among the cereals, and its nature to provide sap
ability during dough making is the most important technical
basis of use in snacks (Ring et al., 1988). On the other
hand, rice flour develops viscosity between Bengal gram
and wheat flours, but at higher gelatinization temperature
it develops a gel like character during cooling. Rice flour
also has some popularity owing to its stability in acetic
acid system. Pulses,most commonly consumed in the form
of cooked seed or sprouts, are an important source of the
dietary energy and proteins to the vegetarian diet (Bravo
et al., 1999).
Vitamin-A deficiency is a major micronutrient problem
among children. Carrot flour is a good source of carotene to
prevent vitamin-A malnutrition, if incorporated in the food.
Carrot also contains oxy-carotenoids such as leutin (Slattry
et al., 2000), which is a protective agent for colon cancer in
humans (Acubor, 2005). Hence, a need was felt to process
and preserve such a high nutrient vegetable for use, in off-
season, in popular snack item like sev. The main objective
of the present study was to use multipurpose flour as basic
ingredient for preparation of sev, to enhance the taste and
nutritive value of snack food by incorporating Bengal
gram flour, carrot powder and to investigate the qualitative
parameters. The snack food was prepared with salty taste,
which can be served as a ready to eat (RTE) snack.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Raw Materials
Multipurpose flours (rice, wheat and Bengal gram), spices,
salt, hydrogenated fat and yellow carrots were purchased
from the local market of Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh). Blends
comprising rice, wheat and Bengal gram four in 1:1:1, 1:1:2
and 1:2:2 ratios were made in order to develop snack food
with different levels(0 to 15%) of carrot powder (Table 1).

1&3
Division of Post Harvest Technology,Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi – 110 012 (India). Corresponding author: E-mail:
k_krishna_374@yahoo.co.in; 2Department of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh-202002 (India)

27
January - March, 2013 Effect of Carrot Powder on Quality of Multipurpose Flour based Snack Food

Carrot powder (CP) was prepared using yellow carrot. Fresh Sample Selection
carrots were scrapped to remove the stalks and tips, washed Twenty-one samples (Table 1) were formulated for sensory
to clean, then cut into slices of 5 mm thick, blanched in evaluation by panelist. Samples included in or excluded
boiling common salt solution of 2 to 4% strength for 5 min from study were completely based on sensory evaluation.
to inactivate harmful enzymes, placed over blotting paper
to remove the surface moisture and then dried in tray dryer Quality Evaluation
at 60oC for 11 h. All samples of snack food were prepared Proximate composition (moisture and fat) of snack foods
(Fig. 1) using small scale Sev making machine (Economode were determined according to the procedures of AOAC
Food Equipment Pvt. Ltd, India). (1995). The pH value of the products was determined using
digital pH meter (Indian Make), as discussed by Strange
Ingredients
et al.(1977). Peroxide value (PV) and free fatty acid (FFA,
(MPF, CP and Spices)
as Oleic Acid) were analysed by AOAC (1975) method.
↓
Similarly, thio-barbutyric acid (TBA) number was measured
Mixing
by the method described by Strange et al. (1977).
(Manually, for 6 min)
↓ Colour values of fried snack food were determined in
Dough making terms of L, a, and b using a HunterLab Mini Scan XE plus
(Manually by adding water @ 45 to 55 % followed colorimeter (HAL, USA, model 45%-L). In the Hunter scale,
relaxation period 1 h) ‘L’ measures lightness (100 for perfect white to zero for
↓ black); ‘a’ measures redness when positive; grey when zero,
Preparation of sev using machine and greenness when negative; and ‘b’ measures yellowness
↓ when positive; gray when zero; and blueness when negative.
Thin cylindrical shape snack The colorimeter was calibrated with standard black and
(1mm) white calibration tiles, and displayed values were matched
↓ with the values reported in the operating manuals. The total
Frying colour change (ΔE) (Eq. (1)), chroma (Eq. (2)) and hue angle
(Oil temperature: 160 to 1700 C) (Eq. (3)) were calculated from the Hunter L, a, b scale and
↓ used to describe the colour change during frying.
Cooling
(Air cooling at ambient temperature for 30 min)
↓
∆E = ( L0 − Lt ) 2 + ( a0 − at ) 2 + ( b0 − bt ) 2
… (1)
Ready to eat (RTE)
Where, L0, a0, b0 are the initial colour measurements
Fig. 1: Process flow chart for preparation of snack food of control sample (0% CP) and Lt, at, bt are the colour

Table 1. Standardization of snack food formulations using cereals, pulses and carrot powder

Sample A Sample B Sample C

Flour ratio Carrot Flour ratio Carrot Flour ratio Carrot
(rice : wheat : Bengal powder, % (rice : wheat : Bengal powder, % (rice : wheat : Bengal powder, %
gram) 1:1:1 gram) 1:1:2 gram) 1:2:2

A1 0.0 B1 0.0 C1 0.0

A1 2.5 B2 2.5 C2 2.5
A2 5.0 B3 5.0 C3 5.0
A3 7.5 B4 7.5 C4 7.5
A4 10.0 B5 10.0 C5 10.0
A5 12.5 B6 12.5 C6 12.5
A7 15.0 B7 15.0 C7 15.0

28
Krishna Kumar Patel, S. A. Liaquati, M. A. Khan, P. S. Minz JAE : 50 (1)

measurements of carrot incorporated samples.
(
Chroma = a t2 + bt2 )0.5
…(2)
b  of CP blended samples as compared to control samples.
Hue Angle = tan −1  t 
 at  … (3)
Textural analysis of snacks food was done using TAHD
type, Stable Micro System (SMS England), 5-bladed
Kramer Shear Cell (HDP/KS5), with 25 kg load cell, heavy
duty platform (HDP/90), 2.0 mm.s-1 test speed and 10 mm.s-1
post-test speed to measure fracturability.
Microbial analysis
Total plate count of snack food samples was done by the
method described by ICMSF (1978).
Sensory Evaluation
Preference ranking test (Ranganna, 1994) was conducted
to evaluate the fried snack by 25 panelists (15 trained,10
semi-trained) for sensory attributes such as colour,
flavour, texture, taste, crispness, appearance and overall
acceptability.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
It was found that addition of higher quantity of wheat
flour resulted in sticky dough. Rice flour, Bengal gram
flour and carrot powder (CP) was added to provide good
textural properties and nutritional quality of snack food.
Carrot powder blended samples required 5 to 10 % more
water than control sample to make dough, mainly due
to higher water absorption capacity (WAC) (462%) of
CP. According to Acubor (2005), CP may contain more
hydrophilic carbohydrates to give rise in water absorption
capacity, but lowered the frying time and temperature
Frying time and temperature followed decreasing trend as
level of CP increased. It might be due to low bulk density
(0.67 - 0.68 g.cm-3) of CP, which sped up frying rate and
consequently decreased frying temperature by 10±20C in
comparison to control sample.
Physico-chemical Properties
Moisture content
It ranged between 1 to 2.2 % for all samples of snack food
(Table 2), and was in agreement with Jean et al. (1996) and
Kulkarni et al. (1994). According to Jean et al. (1996), snack
food should have moisture content of less than 5 % to make
the product brittle while Kulkarni et al. (1994) reported
that the product remained crisp up to 2.8 % moisture
content. Sample with higher blend of CP had lowest value,
while control sample (with no CP) had maximum value
of moisture content. Higher moisture content of control
sample might be due to gelatinization of starch while lower
levels occurring due to carrot powder decreasing the effect
of gelatinization. Park et al.(1993), Davidson et al.(1984),
Cheftel (1986) and Manan et al. (1991) reported similar
results. One per cent addition of carrot powder caused
decrease in moisture content by 0.164 % to 2.13% expressed
by the linear regression equation:
MC = 2.29 - 0.164CP … (4)

Table 2. Physico-chemical properties, textural analysis and microbial characteristics of control and CP blended snack
food samples

Constituent Sample code

S1 S2 S3 S4
Moisture content, % 2.20 2.00 1.50 1.00
Fat content, % 35.00 33.00 28.00 24.00
pH 7.20 7.30 7.50 7.60
Free fatty acid, % 0.34 0.33 0.30 0.26
Peroxide value (PV), meq O2.kg-1 4.30 4.17 3.72 3.25
Thiobarbutyric acid (TBA),mg.kg of malonaldehyde
-1
0.085 0.080 0.075 0.065
Texture analysis (Hardness), Positive peak force (N) 28.92 25.56 16.10 13.32
Total plate count (TPC), log cfu.g-1 ND ND ND ND
*Values are means of three replicates

29
January - March, 2013 Effect of Carrot Powder on Quality of Multipurpose Flour based Snack Food
Where MC = Moisture content, % (wb), and CP = Carrot
powder, %. The coefficient of determination (R2: 0.969) from
the regression analysis showed a reasonable fit of data .
Fat content
Initially, fat content of all samples were found to be high and
ranged between 22 and 35% (Table 2) and 35% in control
sample ‘S1. The results had close conformity with the
findings of Manan et al. (1991). They observed fat content
of 24.6 % in snack food prepared from blend containing
30:70 ratio of rice flour and colocasia mash. Thakur and
Arya (1990) on the other hand reported 40.5 % fat content
in snack food prepared from refined wheat flour (maida),
wheat flour, cumin seed and vegetable oil. Echendu (2004)
had reported that the fat content of snack food decreased
with increase in level of CP. The linear regression equation
(5) presents the relationship as:
FC = 35.7 -1.52CP … (5)
Where FC = Fat content, % (wb), and CP = Carrot powder,
% . The coefficient of determination (R2) from the regression
analysis was 0.976, which indicated good prediction.
pH value
The pH of snack food samples S1 (control), S2 and S3 were
found as 7.4, 7.4 and 7.5 (Table 2). The sample S4, having
higher level of CP, had highest pH value of 7.6 and might
be due to more release of water during frying. This result
showed a little difference with the finding of Anna et al.
(2005), where they have reported pH value 6.45 of snack
food prepared from buffalo rumen meat and corn flour. The
linear regression equation with coefficient of determination
(R2) of 0.98, shows good prediction:
pH = 7.05+0.14CP … (6)
Where pH = Power of hydrogen (-log [H+]), and CP =
Carrot powder, %.
Free fatty acid
FFA contents of snack food samples was found to vary
between 0.26 and 0.34 % of oleic acids (Table 2), and are in
line with the results of Thakur and Arya (1990). The snack
food sample (S4),with higher carrot powder, showed lowest
values of FFA as 0.26% and other CP blended samples S2
and S3 had FFA values as 0.33 and 30 % of oleic acid,
respectively. Snack food that had lower moisture content
had less degradation products of hydro-peroxide, and
consequently less in FFA. The linear regression equation
has good prediction with coefficient of determination (R2)
as 0.941:
30
FFA = 0.348 - 0.0108CP … (7)
Where FFA = Free fatty acid, %, and CP = Carrot powder,
%.
Peroxide value
The peroxide values of snack food ranged between 4.30
and 3.25 meq O2 per kg fat (Table 2), which was in close
conformity with findings of Thakur and Arya (1990). The
sample S1 had highest peroxide value as 4.30 meq O2 per
kg than the snack food samples. The lowest peroxide value
was noted for the sample S4, and might be due to lowest
moisture content and antioxidant properties of carrot
powder. The peroxide value showed decreasing trend with
increase in the level of CP (Eqn.8):
PV = 4.4 - 0.144 CP … (8)
Where PV= Peroxide value, meq O2/kg, and CP = Carrot
powder, %. The coefficient of determination (R2) from the
regression analysis was 0.951, which indicated reliable
prediction.
Thiobarbutyric acid (TBA)
It was observed that in fresh sample, TBA was between
0.085 to 0.062 mg.kg-1 of malonaldehyde (Table 2) and
evident of low rate of peroxidation. The snack food sample
S4 had higher incorporation percentage of carrot powder,
and showed lowest value of TBA. The above results showed
conformity with the finding of Thakur and Arya (1990)
and Kulkarni et al. (1994). The regression equation (9)
expressed the relationship as:
TBA = 0.086 - 0.0026CP … (9)
Where TBA = Thiobarbutyric acid, mg.kg -1 of
malonaldehyde, and CP = Carrot powder, %.
The coefficient of determination (R2 =0.941) from the
regression analysis indicated reliable prediction.
Microbial analysis
The results (Table 2) showed that TPC was not detected
in fresh condition in all samples. Anna et al. (2005) have
also reported that the all count were very less for cereal
based snack foods even on 30 days of storage. In another
study, Park et al (1993) have showed slightly low microbial
count in extruded beef-based snack products. Thus, it
could be concluded that snack foods are microbiologically
completely stable in fresh condition.
Krishna Kumar Patel, S. A. Liaquati, M. A. Khan, P. S. Minz JAE : 50 (1)

Textural analysis
The positive peak force of control sample was 28.92N, while
for CP blend samples it was between 25.56N and 13.32N
(Table 2). As the CP blend ratio increased, the hardness of
snack foods decreased rapidly. A linear regression equation
(10) showed a reasonable fit of the data with R2 (coefficient
of determination) value 0.95:
PF = 29.414 - 2.2504CP … (10)
Where PF = Peak force, N, and CP = Carrot powder, %.
Colour analysis
The whiteness or brightness/darkness (L value), redness/
greenness (a value) and yellowness/blueness (b value) of
CP blend samples (S2, S3 and S4) were different from the
control (S1). ‘L’, ‘a’ and ‘b’ values of CP blend samples
decreased as the level of CP increased. This might be due
to addition of pigment (carotenoids) colour after frying,
which imparted slightly golden colour. For control sample,
the value of ‘L’ ‘a’ and ‘b’ was 42.18, 11.11 and 36.98,
respectively, while for CP blend samples the values ranged
from 31.38 to 25.18, 10.99 to 10.34 and 31.38 to 25.18,
respectively (Table 3).
were also less than the control sample (S1) and recorded
decreasing trend as the level of CP increased. The total
colour change in sample S4 (higher CP) was higher than
the samples S2 and S3 (Table 3). The values of coefficient
of determination (R2) showed good fit of data, and the
negative value of constant k for all colour values, except
for total colour change, showed adverse effect of CP blend
(Table 4).
Sensory Attribute of Snack Food
Samples in A-group were completely excluded due to
their higher hardness, while samples in B-group were
acceptable although the taste quality was not satisfactory.
More hardness of group-A samples might be due insufficient
quantity of Bengal gram flour and wheat to compensate the
gel like character of rice flour. On other hand, the problem
was almost negligible in group-C samples with 0 to 7.5 %
blend of carrot powder, due to sufficient quantity of Bengal
gram and wheat flour to compensate the unacceptable effect
of rice flour. The other samples in group-C, with 10 to 15%
carrot powder were excluded due to burning flavour after
frying. Samples selected for study were C1, C2, C3 and
C4, named as S1, S2, S3 and S4,were acceptable and rated
best by every panelist.

Similarly, croma ‘C’, and hue angle ‘αo’ of CP blend samples The results of sensory evaluation revealed that CP blend

Table 3. Colour evaluation of control and CP blended incorporated snack food samples

Sample Code Colour value

L- value a- value b-value Croma (C) α0 ΔE
S1 42.18 11.11 36.98 38.61 73.32 -
S2 38.39 10.99 31.38 33.25 70.73 6.82
S3 34.37 10.68 28.78 30.70 69.68 11.33
S4 29.94 10.34 25.18 27.22 67.71 17.02
* α0 –hue angle and Δ E – total colour change
*Values are means of three replicates

Table 4. Linear regression analysis results for effect of blends of carrot powder on colour values of snacks food

Colour value Regression equation K (min-1) C0 R-square

L L = 42.291-1.6256CP -1.63 42.29 0.999
a a = 11.173 - 0.1048CP -1.05 11.17 0.963
b b = 36.28-1.52CP -1.52 36.28 0.976
Croma, C C = 37.954 - 1.4691CP -1.45 37.95 0.977
Hue angle, α0 HA = 73.04 - 0.7151CP -0.72 73.04 0.976
Total colour E = 1.5241+ 2.0399CP +2.04 1.52 0.996
change, Δ E

31
January - March, 2013 Effect of Carrot Powder on Quality of Multipurpose Flour based Snack Food

Table 5. Sensory evaluation results of control and carrot powder blended snack foods

Sample code Colour* Flavour* Texture* Taste* Crispness* Buying* Overall

intention acceptability
S1 8.1 7.9 7.1 8.5 7.2 7.2 7.8
S2 8.3 8.5 7.5 8.8 8.0 8.3 8.2
S3 8.2 8.4 7.4 8.7 7.8 7.8 8.1
S4 8.0 7.5 7.4 8.2 7.6 6.8 7.6
*Values are means of three replicates

samples (S1, S2 and S3) in fresh condition were rated
between 8.1 to 8.3, 7.5 to 8.5, 7.1 to 7.5, 8.5 to 8.8, 7.2 to
8.0 and 6.8 to 8.3 (Table 5), respectively. It is also important
to note that the OAA (over all acceptability) of these fried
snacks were 7.8, 8.2 and 8.1, respectively, in fresh condition.
The sampleswith highest CP blend ratio showed lowest
OAA and buying intention by the panelist. This was mainly
due to slightly dark colour imparted by CP after frying.
CONCLUSIONS
The carrot powder bends could be used to produce good
quality snack food with acceptable physico-chemical and
organoleptic qualities. The quality of snack food based
on multipurpose flour (MPF) and carrot powder was
nutritionally better as compared to control sample. The
snacks with higher CP was had lowest fat content, while the
snack food with no CP had maximum fat content.
Physico-chemical and textural properties of snack foods
showed a linear increase/decrease in their value as blends
of carrot powder increased. Prediction equations developed
for these properties at different level of carrot powder blends
could estimate at any desired range of carrot powder.
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January - March, 2013 A Comparative Study on Drying of Ber
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

A Comparative Study on Drying of Ber

Priyanka Das1 and Archana Singha Dutta2

Manuscript received: May, 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: December, 2012

ABSTRACT

Ber (Zizyphus jujuba) is one of the popular seasonal, but highly perishable fruit of India. Plantations of
indigenous fruit are depleting gradually due to lack of processing facilities. Traditional processing of the
fruit, although crude, is popular in India. Traditionally processed fruits do not have market value as not
accepted by the consumers. Among the unit operations for processing of fruit, drying is the most important.
At domestic level, sun drying is popular and convenient, but does not maintain quality of the finished product.
For commercial products mechanical dryers, solar dryers, microwave dryers, etc are used. Application of a
dryer for a particular produce depends on the physical and biological characteristics of the produce. A study
on drying pattern and nutritional qualities of dried product (ber) showed that microwave technology combined
with solar drying could be applied to dry it and retain its quality.

Key words: Ber, drying methods, nutritional qualities

Ber (Zizyphus jujuba) is one of the popular seasonal, but
highly perishable fruit of India. There is huge loss of fruits
because of non-availability of proper facility for processing
and preservation. Traditional processing is practiced at
domestic level, and the processed products are consumed by
the household themselves. Little research work is reported
on domestic fruit processing in the country. There are several
steps and components of processing and preservation of fruit
or other perishable products, and among them drying is the
most important. Ber can be preserved for longer period if
scientifically dried. Drying of food is a complex process.
The quality of the product is affected if proper equipment
and process are not used, thereby depleting its market value.
Evaluation of nutritional quality involves determination of
total ash content (indicating the presence of minerals), total
phenol content and antioxidant activities.
Production of ber is increasing in China as it has good food
quality and is suitable for pharmaceutical applications (Li
et al., 2007). Having realized the importance of ber crop,
emphasis is being given in China on studies involving
quality analysis for processing and preservation of the
fruit. Sun drying involves long duration, which affects the
quality of the product. Solar drying is a better option, but
its dependency on duration of sunlight and availability
of suitable equipment are constraints. Both sun and
solar drying systems can be improved by using them in
combination. Application of microwave drying technology
for drying the perishable food products have been reported
as a suitable option (Sharma, 2007; Sharma et al., 2009;
Wang et al., 2009; Husain et al., 2010). A comparative study
on sun, solar and combined (solar and microwave) drying
technology was carried out for ber fruit as also evaluate
the drying pattern and its effect on nutritional quality of
dried ber.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Well ripened and healthy ber fruit with seed were collected
from Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat campus and
utilized for drying experiment the same day. Drying was
continued till the moisture reached below 15% (w.b.),
though the safe level of moisture content in dried fruit was
reported to be 10-20% (Srivastava and Kumar, 2003a).
Drying of ber was performed by (a) sun drying, (b) solar
drying using solar cabinet drier (Rajasthan University
of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur design), and (c)
combination of microwave oven (Laboratory/ domestic
type) drying followed by solar drying.
Before sun and solar drying, 300g of sample was blanched
by dipping in warm water at 88 0C for 2 min (Srivastava
and Kumar, 2003b), and another 300g sample was directly
dried (un-blanched) after washing. Rupturing of the skin

All India Coordinated Research Project on Post Harvest Technology, Department of Biochemistry and Agricultural Chemistry, 2All India
1

Coordinated Research Project on Post Harvest Technology, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat,
Assam. Corresponding author e-mail: priyanka.aau@gmail.com

34
Priyanka Das and Archana Singha Dutta JAE : 50 (1)
was done for both by knife before drying.
In case of combined drying, 300g ber sample was washed
with normal water and then ruptured by a knife. The sample
was then subjected to microwave energy. Microwave power
and operational time was initially selected at 450W for 0.31h
(0.1h, 0.1h, 0.05h, 0.06h, respectively) and then at 180W
for 0.1h. The sample was then subjected to solar drying till
the safe moisture level was attained.
Initial moisture content of the seeded sample was determined
by oven dry method by drying the sample at 500C (more than
500C led to darkening of sample) till constant weight was
recorded. During drying period, the weight of each sample
was recorded at uniform intervals to determine the moisture
content. Each treatment was replicated three times.
The average ambient temperature, bright sun shine hours
(BSSH) and relative humidity (RH) were collected from
the Department of Agricultural Meteorology, Assam
Agricultural University, Jorhat. The room temperature and
the temperature inside the solar drier were recorded by a
room thermometer.
Dried samples were packed in polyethylene bags and stored
in dark place for six months at room temperature (average
temperature 17.150C to 27.90C). However, solar dried
sample was stored in refrigerator. The total ash content, total
phenol content and antioxidant activity of the dried samples
(excluding seed) were analyzed by standard methods given
by AOAC (1960), Swain and Hillis (1955) and Molyneux
(2004), respectively. Free radical scavenging ability of
DPPH (1, 1-di phenyl-2- picryl hydrazyl) was determined
on methanolic extracts of treated samples. Antioxidant
activity of L-ascorbic acid and quercetin were also assayed
as standard. The inhibition of DPPH radicals by the sample
Table 1. Moisture content of seeded ber samples during sun and solar drying
Duration of Duration of
drying drying Sun dried
(day) (BSSH) Blanched Un-blanched
Initial 0 65.00
3 19.8 42.30
4 20.5 30.00
6 23.0 23.35
7 25.0 13.18
8 32.5 4.35
C.D.0.05 1.61
35
was calculated as:
DPPH inhibition (%) = [1-absorbance of sample/ absorbance
of control} x100 …(1)
The sensory quality was evaluated by five semi-skilled
persons using 9 point Hedonic scale.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Moisture Content
Moisture content of seeded ber samples (Table 1) showed
that sun drying was completed in 7-8 days, (25-32.5 BSSH),
during which the average ambient temperature and relative
humidity were 15.260C and 79.49%, respectively. Sun dried
blanched ber had moisture content of 13.08% (w. b.) after
7 days (25 BSSH). The same for un-blanched samples was
12.50% (w. b.) after 8 days (32.5 BSSH). No difference in
colour of the dried products of the two samples (one washed
and another blanched) was observed. Solar drier dried ber
moisture reduced to safe level (7.24% and 11.46%, w. b.,
for blanched and un-blanched, respectively) after 23.0
BSSH (6 days). The requirement of lesser time for solar
drying in comparison to sun drying might be due to higher
temperature available within the drier (Das and Sharma,
2002). During investigation, maximum 20 0 C higher
temperature than the ambient (15.260C) was recorded inside
the solar drier. No difference in colour of the dried products
of the two samples was observed. It was observed that for
both sun and solar drying, drying was rapid for blanched
samples which might be due to increase in pore size. It
facilitated the diffusion of moisture at higher rate.
In case of combined drying (Table 2), when the ber sample
(300g) of 65% initial moisture content (wet basis) was
subjected to 0.1605 kW.h microwave energy (450W for
Moisture content, % (w. b.)
Solar dried
Blanched Un-blanched
65.00 65.00 65.00
46.96 33.54 34.53
40.00 22.79 24.13
31.37 7.24 11.46
21.05 3.49 8.85
12.50 - -
1.79 2.23 2.57
January - March, 2013 A Comparative Study on Drying of Ber

Table 2. Moisture content of seeded ber samples during combined drying

Drying method Time Energy consumed Total energy consumed Moisture content
(h) (%, w.b.)
Microwave, 450W 0.1 0.0450kW.h 0.0450kW.h 61.39
Microwave, 450W 0.1 0.0450kW.h 0.0900kW.h 55.69
Microwave, 450W 0.05 0.0225kW.h 0.1125kW.h 51.58
Microwave, 450W 0.06 0.0300kW.h 0.1425kW.h 45.31
Microwave, 180W 0.1 0.0180kW.h 0.1605kW.h 44.44
Solar 48 11.4 BSSH 11.4 BSSH 15.52
Solar 72 6.2 BSSH 17.6 BSSH 8.69
C.D.0.05 1.37

Note: Initial moisture content of sample was 65.0 %, w.b.

0.31h and then 180W for 0.1h), the moisture content was
44.44% (w. b.). Continuation of same power (450W) or
300W beyond 0.31h led to darkening of ber fruit, for which
the power was further reduced to 180W. However, the drying
rate decreased when dried for 0.1 h at 180W. Therefore, the
sample moisture content was finally brought to 8.69% (wet
basis), equivalent to 17.6 BSSH, after subjecting to solar
drying. Wang et al. (2009) reported that 90W power was
better for microwave drying of ber for quality (colour),
which took 16 h to reach 0.269 kg water.kg-1 dry matter
(21.19% w. b.) from the initial moisture of 1.778 kg water.
kg-1 dry matter (64%, w. b.). He also observed shrinkage and
darkening of product beyond 135 W. However, in the present
study, such effect was not observed as revealed by sensory
evaluation (Table 6). The study showed that microwave
energy could be applied to reduce the initial moisture load,
as it enhanced rapid drying. Hussain et al. (2010) reported
that application of microwave led to generation of heat
from within the sample, its interior quickly reaching the
boiling point of water leading to generation of a vapour
pressure gradient, expelling the moisture from the sample.
The vapour pressure developed led to increase in pore size.
The increase in pore size facilitated the diffusion of moisture
and led to quick drying. However, Sharma (2007) stated
that heating of food in microwave oven was affected by
moisture content of food, initial temperature, homogeneity,
geometry and quantity of food.
Anti-oxidant Activity
The total phenol content was observed to range from 0.21 to
0.26% after one week of drying (Table 3). After six months
of storage, phenol content was in the range of 0.21 to 0.42%
(Table 4). Li et al. (2007) reported that total phenolic content
(gallic acid equivalent) of Chinese jujube in five cultivars

Table 3. Total phenol content, DPPH inhibition and IC50 values of dried ber after one week of drying

Sample Total DPPH inhibition IC50

Phenol (%) value
(% d. b.) 1mg 2mg 4mg 8mg 16mg 32mg (mg)
Sun dried (unblanched), room temperature stored 0.21 32.09 42.32 46.03 70.01 75.66 74.42 4.34
Sun dried (blanched), room temperature stored 0.25 36.29 40.21 56.61 66.84 74.42 75.30 3.53
Solar dried (unblanched), room temperature 0.26 23.45 42.22 63.70 69.38 73.08 66.42 2.74
stored
Solar dried (blanched), room temperature stored 0.24 41.89 46.31 57.80 66.72 75.12 75.30 3.46
Combined dried, room temperature stored 0.25 34.94 53.28 71.62 76.83 77.40 77.00 1.65
C.D.0.05 NS 4.06 4.46 4.81 5.45 4.81 5.41
Ascorbic acid (µg) 5.14
Quercetin (µg) 2.01

36
Priyanka Das and Archana Singha Dutta JAE : 50 (1)

Table 4. Total phenol content, % DPPH inhibition and IC50 values of dried ber after six months of drying

Sample type Total Phenol DPPH Inhibition IC50

(% dry (%) Value
basis) 2mg 5mg 10mg 20mg 60mg (mg)
Sundried (unblanched), room temperature stored 0.21 16.18 25.85 46.62 64.00 87.66 10.72
Sundried (blanched), room temperature stored 0.28 17.7 24.2 46.24 53.52 88.84 14.74
Solar dried (unblanched), room temperature stored 0.38 18.0 25.0 47.0 55.0 85.43 14.00
Solar dried (blanched), room temperature stored 0.42 17.74 25.48 49.93 56.56 86.22 10.00
Combined dried, room temperature stored 0.32 20.76 28.15 60.76 75.85 89.50 8.50
Solar dried, refrigerated storage 0.33 22.16 36.43 65.47 79.13 88.05 7.50
C.D.0.05 0.05 2.18 1.78 2.52 3.08 2.81
Ascorbic acid 7.25
Quercetin µg
7.84
µg

ranged between 0.518 and 0.853 per cent. Table 5. Total ash content of dried ber after six months

After one week of drying, methanolic extract of ber Sample Total ash
equivalent to 1mg dry sample produced 23 to 41% DPPH (% d. b.)
scavenging activity (Table 3), which reduced on storage
Sundried (unblanched), room temperature 2.98
(Table 4). However, Li et al. (2005) reported that 1mg
stored
concentrated extract of freshly harvested Chinese jujube
produced 33.6% to 98.6% DPPH scavenging activity. IC Sundried (blanched), room temperature 3.29
50 values (50% DPPH inhibition) of methanolic extract of stored
dried ber after one week of drying were between 1.65 mg Solar dried (unblanched), room temperature 3.00
for combined dried ber to 4.34mg for sun dried ber. IC 50 stored
values were found to increase during storage. However, Solar dried (blanched), room temperature 2.88
Sanja et al. (2009); Gupta et al. (2009) and Bhatia and stored
Mishra (2009) reported lower IC 50 values for the leaves of Combined dried, room temperature stored 2.32
Portulaca oleracea (12.67µg), roots of Rhodiola imbricata Solar dried, refrigerated stored 2.64
(4.391µg) and seeds of Zizyphus mauritiana (about 50µg).
C.D.0.05 0.50
Observation of lower values might be due to their higher

Table 6. Sensory evaluation score of dried ber

Parameter On drying* Six months after drying*

Sun dried Solar dried Combined Sun dried Solar dried Combined Solar dried
dried dried (refrigerated
stored)
Taste 9.0 9.0 9.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 8.0
Colour 8.0 8.0 9.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.0
Flavour 8.0 8.0 8.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 8.0
Overall acceptability 8.0 8.0 8.5 7.0 7.0 7.0 8.0

*Data are average of three samples

Determined on 9 point Hedonic scale

37
January - March, 2013 A Comparative Study on Drying of Ber
antioxidant activity and / or utilization of dried alcoholic/
aqueous extract for DPPH scavenging assay. From the
study, it was observed that the samples stored in refrigerated
condition had better retention of compounds responsible for
antioxidant activity, as shown by lower IC50 value (7.5mg).
However, among the samples stored at room temperature,
the combined dried fruit sample showed the lowest IC50
value (8.5mg), which might indicate better quality of stored
product. The treatment of blanching did not show any
marked effect on DPPH scavenging activity.
Total Ash
The total ash content (Table 5) was found between 2.32 %
and 3.29 %, which agrees with Li et al. (2007) who reported
ash content of Chinese jujube in five cultivars to be 2.26
to 3.01% (d. b.).
Sensory Evaluation
Sensory evaluation for the samples (Table 6) revealed better
colour retention for the combined dried samples. However,
refrigerated samples (solar dried) had better retention of
colour, flavour and taste after six months in comparison to
samples stored at room temperature.
CONCLUSIONS
Microwave drying combined with solar drying can
be applied to dry ber fruit. Ber can be well stored in
polyethylene bags up to six months in dark place retaining
minerals and antioxidant property together with sensory
qualities, both at ambient condition after combined drying
and in refrigerator after solar drying.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The financial assistance provided by ICAR is
acknowledged.
REFERENCES
AOAC. 1960. Official Methods of Analysis, 9th Edition,
Association of Official Analytical Chemists, Washington
DC.
Bhatia A; Mishra T. 2009. Free radical scavenging
activity and inhibitory response of Zyziphus mauritiana
(Lamk) seed extract on alcohol-induced oxidative stress. J.
Complementary and Integrative Medicine, 6(1), 1-20.
38
Das P; Sarma SK. 2001. Drying of ginger using solar
cabinet dryer. J. Food Sci. Technol., 38 (6), 619-621.
Gupta V; Lahiri SS; Sultana S; Tulsawani R; Kumar
R. 2009. In Vitro evaluation of antioxidant and free
radical scavenging activities of Rhodiola imbricate. J.
Complementary and Integrative Medicine, 6(1), 1-17.
Hussain A; Li Z; Ramanah DR, Niamnuy C; Raghavan
GSV. 2010. Microwave drying of ginger by online aroma
monitoring. Drying Technol., 28, 42-48.
Li J W; Ding S; Ding X. 2005. Comparison of antioxidant
capacities of extracts from five cultivars of Chinese jujube.
Process Biochem., 40, 3607-3613.
Li J W; Fan L; Ding S; Ding X. 2007. Nutritional
composition of five cultivars of Chinese jujube. Food
Chem., 103, 454-460.
Molyneux P. 2004. The use of stable free radical diphynyl
picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) for estimating antioxidant activity.
Songklanakarin J. Sci. Technol., 26(2), 212-219.
Sanja S; Seth NR; Patel NK; Patel D; Patel B. 2009.
Characterization and evaluation of antioxidant activity of
Portulaca oleracea. Int. J. Pharmacy Pharm. Sci., 1(1),
74-84.
Sharma S. 2007. Microwave technology-application in
food processing. Indian Food Packer, Jan-Feb, 74-79.
Sharma GP; Prasad S; Chahar VK. 2009. Moisture
transport in garlic cloves undergoing microwave-convective
drying. Food Bioprod. Process., 87,11-16.
Srivastava RP; Kumar S. 2003a. Fruit and vegetable
preservation Principles and Practices. International Book
Distributing Company, Lucknow, pp:128.
Srivastava RP; Kumar S. 2003b. Fruit and vegetable
preservation Principles and Practices. International Book
Distributing Company, Lucknow, pp:88.
Swain T; Hillis W E. 1955. The phenolic constituents of
Prunus domestica . The quantitative analysis of phenolic
constituents. J. Sci. Food Agric., 10, 963-968.
Wang Z; Fang S; Hu X. 2009. Effective diffusivities
and energy consumption of whole fruit Chinese Jujube
(Zizyphus jujube Miller) in microwave drying. Drying
Technol., 27, 1097-1104.
Jaydipsinh B. Raol, Mahendrasinh T. Kumpavat and D.M.Vyas JAE : 50 (1)
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Drying Characteristics of Rose Flowers

Jaydipsinh B. Raol1, Mahendrasinh T. Kumpavat 2and D.M. Vyas3
Manuscript received: March, 2011 Revised manuscript accepted: December, 2012

ABSTRACT

Full boom rose was 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 most suitable method and parameters. The Exponential and Page’s model were tested
for their validity. Page’s model was found to fit best. The maximum and minimum drying time for rose flowers was
5 days in shade and 13 minutes in microwave oven. Drying of rose flowers under all treatments completely took
place in the falling rate period. Maximum overall drying rate of 5.87 %/min was during microwave oven drying
with silica gel at 50oC, followed by vacuum drying at 40oC. Microwave oven drying of rose flowers at 50oC with
silica gel was found the best from the reduction in size point of view.

Key words: Drying, drying characteristics, rose, microwave oven, vacuum, shade, solar, hot air

In India, floriculture has been associated with culture
and heritage since ancient time. Now, it is poised for a
transformation owing to increase in demand for quality
flowers due to urbanization, innovative technology, policy,
environment, etc. India with nearly 1,83,000 ha of land
under flowers has a production of 1.021 million loose
flowers and 666.7 million cut flowers during 2009-10
(National Horticulture Board, 2010). Fresh flowers are one
of the main segments of floriculture trade. Fresh flowers,
though exquisite in their beauty, have short life due to
their highly perishable nature and available only during a
particular season. Large quantity of fresh flowers is lost due
to lack of proper marketing channel and some unavoidable
circumstances during blooming season. The beauty and
freshness of flowers can only be retained for a few days even
using suitable preservatives. The charm of flowers can be
maintained and preserved for several years by employing
drying technology. The microbial activity and aging effect
come to a standstill through drying and in the absence of
moisture. Demand for dried flowers is increasing both in
the domestic as well as in the international market (Anon,
1997). India’s total export of floriculture was Rs.286.45
crore during 2010-11. The major importing countries were
USA, Pakistan, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium
and United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is the largest
importer of dried flowers from India after Germany, Italy,
Netherlands and Spain (www.apeda.gov.in). Dried flower
market is most profitable in terms of sales and unit value.
Flower drying has gained scientific approach only since
the last century. The United States of America, Japan,
China and Arab countries have well organized set-up
for dried floriculture product market. India is advancing
to compete at global level. In spite of India being in her
infancy in dehydration of flowers, foliage and dried plants;
it is apparent from the export of floriculture products that
dried flowers, foliage and dried plant constitute nearly 70
% of total export (Singh, 2000). With increase in export of
floriculture produce from Rs. 18.30 crore in 1993-94 to Rs.
286.45 crore in 2010-2011, approximately 16 times increase
in export of floriculture produce has taken place within 8
years (Singhal, 2003; www.apeda.gov.in).
The principle of preservation of flower by drying is based
on quickly reducing moisture content of flowers to a point
at which biochemical changes can be minimized, or brought
to a standstill while maintaining cell structure, petal pigment
level and shape of flower. Foliage and flowers with low
moisture content, fibrous tissues, attractive shape, pattern
and bright colour are used for drying. Materials harvested
during dry or summer season give excellent result (Rajeevan
and Valsalakumari, 2004). Rose (Rosa Sp.) is largely
harvested flower used in various ways in India. Therefore, a
study was undertaken to assess the effect of various drying
parameters on the quality of dried flowers and the efficacy of
drying methods for commercial and domestic application.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The experiment consisted of cutting / selection, tagging,

1
Assistant Professor, SMC college of Dairy Science, AAU, Anand-388 110,Gujarat ( E-mail:jb11068@yahoo.co.in), 2Assistant Professor,
College of Food Processing Technology and Bio Energy, AAU, Anand-388 110, Gujarat ( E-mail: mtkumpavat@yahoo.co.in), 3Associate
Professor, Agricultural Process Engineering Department , CAET, JAU, Junagadh, Gujarat

39
January - March, 2013 Drying Characteristics of Rose Flowers
measurement of initial moisture content, size and mass
of rose flowers and drying of flowers by different drying
methods. Full boom rose flowers, without any bruising and
intact petals were selected and harvested from greenhouse,
and used during each drying run.
Initial Moisture Content
Moisture content of fresh flowers was determined by
vacuum oven method (AOAC, 1995). Accordingly, three
samples of flowers were dried in vacuum oven at 650 C and
300 mm Hg pressure for 24 h. The samples were weighed
using digital electronic balance of 0.1g accuracy and 360
g capacity. The moisture content on weight basis was
estimated using the relationship:
Wi - Wf
M.C. (%, wb) = ------------ x 100 - - -(1)
Wi
Where,
Wi = Initial mass of sample, g, and
Wf = Final mass of sample, g.
Drying of Flowers
Full boom rose flowers were dried by employing different
drying methods such as hot air drying at 40, 50 and 60oC;
microwave oven drying with silica gel at 50oC; vacuum
drying at 40oC, besides solar and shade drying. Drying of
flowers was done with the pre-decided drying parameters.
Before putting the samples in drying unit, the dryer was
started to attain the pre-set temperature. Reduction in mass
was recorded at regular intervals.
Selected rose flowers were hanged in the drying chamber
of hot air oven, set to a pre-decided temperature, and after
drying mass loss recorded. For vacuum oven drying, rose
flowers were placed in stainless steel tray, which was kept
over the platform of a battery operated balance for drying
in the oven at 40oC and 760 mm of Hg vacuum. Drying was
continued at 40oC till the final mass reached to pre-decided
level. Observations on mass loss were noted during each
drying run initially at an interval of 30 min, and thereafter
at 1 h interval.
Rose flowers were hanged in a solar cabinet dryer for drying.
The temperature inside the dryer varied from 23.0 to 46.5oC
during sunlight hours. Samples were initially weighed at an
interval of 30 min, and thereafter at 1 and 2 h. The samples
of rose flowers was dried from initial moisture content of
about 80 (w.b.) to 3.0 % (w.b.) (Bhutani and Kher, 1979).
Drying in microwave oven was carried out at 50oC till the
40
final mass reached to pre-decided level. Rose flowers were
placed in an automatic microwave oven chamber with silica
gel. The oven was set to operate at pre-decided temperature
and time, and the mass loss noted at an interval of 5 min.
Rose flowers were hanged in an isolated room without
any disturbance for shade drying. The average daily
temperature of the drying room varied from 17 to 27.5oC.
The observations on mass loss were recorded at an interval
of one day.
Drying Characteristics of Flowers
Moisture content
Moisture content of rose flowers during experiment was
determined on the basis of dry matter of flowers.
Dry matter
Percent dry matter in a sample was calculated as following
(Ranganna, 2000):
DM (%, dry matter) = 100.0 – [MC (% w.b.)] ... (2)
DM (g, dry matter) = Total mass of sample (g) – mass of
moisture in sample (g) ... (3)
Drying rate
Drying rate of a sample was calculated by mass balance
equation:
Initial mass of sample, g -
mass of sample after time θ, g
DR = ----------------------------------------------- ...(4)
Time interval (h) x DM (g)
Where, DR = Drying rate at time θ, g of water removed/g
of DM/h.
Equilibrium moisture content
Equilibrium moisture content (% w.b.) was calculated taking
any two successive observations of moisture content Mn
and Mn+1, their corresponding drying times t n and t n+1, and
fitting in the following equation (Singh et al., 1986):
Mn = z* M(n+1) + (1-z) Me ... (5)
Where,
Z = exp (kΔt),
Δt = t n - t n+1, and
Me = Equilibrium moisture content, % (w.b).
The equilibrium moisture content calculated using above
Jaydipsinh B. Raol, Mahendrasinh T. Kumpavat and D.M.Vyas JAE : 50 (1)

expression was found much above than the final moisture
content.Therefore, the final moisture content was considered
as equilibrium moisture content (Prabhanjan et al., 1995).
Overall drying rate
Overall drying rate was calculated as (Kar and Gupta,
2003):
Mi - Mf
(δM/ δt)0 = ----------- ... (6)
Δt
Where,
(δM/ δt)0 = Overall drying rate, % /min,
Mi = Initial moisture content, % (w.b.),
Mf = Final moisture content, (% w.b.), and
Δt = Total drying time, min.
Moisture ratio
Moisture ratio for individual drying experiment under
each drying method was estimated using the following
equation:
Mi - Me
MR = ------------ ...(7)
M - Me
Where,Mi and M are the moisture content of sample at time
θ = 0 and at any instant time, respectively.
Model Validation
The following commonly used grain models were tested for
their validity on rose and gerbera flower drying:
(i) Exponential model (Brooker et al., 1974)
(M - Me) / (Mo - Me) = Exp (-kt) ...(8)
origin, and model constants and their statistical parameters
for individual drying run were determined.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Drying Behaviour of Rose Flower
Hot air oven drying
Initial moisture content of rose flowers was 80% (w.b.). The
time required for drying of rose flowers to final moisture
content of about 3 % (w.b.) was 44, 30 and 21 h at 40, 50
and 60oC, respectively. The initial drying rate was of the
order of 0.45, 1.81, 2.35 g.g-1dry matter.h-1, which reduced
to 0.002, 0.004 and 0.009 g.g-1dry matter.h-1 after 44, 30
and 21 h of drying, under hot air oven at 40, 50 and 60oC,
respectively.
The flowers dried at 60 oC took considerably lower time to
reduce the moisture content from about 80% to 3% (w.b.).
Obliviously, at higher temperature the movement of drying
front was faster as compared to lower temperature. Similar
results were obtained by Cheng et al. (2002) for lotus
flowers, Sohn et al. (2003) for rose flowers and Pandya et
al. (2001) for chrysanthemum flowers.
The variation in moisture content and drying rate with respect
to time (Fig. 1, 2) was observed to be curvilinear in nature,
suggesting that drying proceeded under falling rate. The
nature of variation of these parameters also indicated that the
drying rate and removal of moisture with respect to time was
initially rapid, and decreased thereafter in all cases.
Hot air drying data at 40, 50 and 60oC were fitted to
Exponential and Page model, and prediction equations
determined. Both models were found to be good fit
(Table 1).

(ii) Page’s model (Brooker et al., 1974)

MR = Exp (-ktn) ... (9)

Where,
M = Moisture content at any instant time, % w.b.,
Me = Moisture content at equilibrium, % w.b.,
M0 = Initial moisture content, % w.b.,
t = Time, min, and
k = Drying constant.

The linear forms of these models were fitted to experimental Fig. 1: Variation in moisture content with time (Hot air
data using regression techniques in Microcol software oven drying)

41
 January - March, 2013

Table 1. Comparison of drying models and overall drying rate

Drying Method Exponential model Page model Initial Final

Drying Drying Overall
MR = c * exp (-kt) MR = exp (-ktn) moisture moisture drying
temperature, time,
content, content, rate, %/
0
C c k R2 k n R2 min min
% w.b. % w.b.

40 1.0557 0.0496 0.978 0.009 1.535 0.995 80.00 3.75 2640 0.0289
Hot air oven 50 1.0070 0.0850 0.988 0.071 1.071 0.989 80.00 3.75 1800 0.0424

42
60 1.0200 0.1990 0.996 0.156 1.158 0.999 80.00 3.98 1260 0.0603
Vacuum drying at 40 0C,
40 1.093 0.241 0.912 0.047 2.040 0.984 80.00 3.44 420 0.1823
760 mm Hg vacuum
Microwave oven drying
50 1.088 0.129 0.953 0.025 1.725 0.995 80.00 3.71 13 5.8685
with silica gel at 50 0C
23.00 to
Solar drying 1.059 0.144 0.876 0.005 2.589 0.999 80.00 4.57 1080 0.0698
46.50
Shade drying 17.0 to 27.5 1.068 0.470 0.951 0.228 1.731 0.992 80.00 5.55 7200 0.0103
Drying Characteristics of Rose Flowers
Jaydipsinh B. Raol, Mahendrasinh T. Kumpavat and D.M.Vyas JAE : 50 (1)

Fig. 4: Variation in drying rate with time (Vacuum

drying at 40 0C)
Fig. 2: Variation in drying rate with time (Hot air oven
drying)
Solar drying
Vacuum oven drying Solar drying took 18 h to reduce the moisture content of
rose flowers to 4.50 % w.b. The initial drying rate was
Rose flowers could be dried to 3% (w.b.) in 7 h. The initial
higher (1.00 g.g-1 dry matter.h-1), and decreased to 0.006
drying rate was higher, 1.42 g.g-1 dry matter.h-1, which
g.g-1 dry matter.h-1 after 18 h. Drying of rose in solar dryer
gradually decreased to 0.12 g.g-1 dry matter.h-1 after 7 h of
was slower, and condensation effect was observed during
drying (Fig. 3). The variation in moisture content (Fig. 3)
drying. Simalemga et al. (1990) reported 8-10 h duration for
and drying rate (Fig. 4) with time was curvilinear, suggesting
drying of 50 kg tanacetumcinerarifolum flowers (generally
that complete drying occurred under falling rate. Due to
harvested at lower moisture than rose) in solar dryer.

The variation of moisture content and drying rate with

respect to time (Fig. 5 and 6) indicated falling rate drying
pattern throughout the drying run. Drying values were fitted
to Exponential and Page model, and prediction equations
determined . Page model was observed to be more effective
(Table 1).

Microwave oven drying

Rose flower required 13 min to reduce moisture content
to the pre-decided level. The drying during initial period

Fig.3: Variation in moisture content with time (Vacuum

drying at 40 0C)

lower pressure during drying, the removal of moisture was

rapid even at low temperature. Therefore, the drying time
for achieving same moisture level was much less than that
of hot air oven drying. Chen et al. (2000) also suggested
4 h vacuum drying for red rose flowers initially at 45.52
% (w.b.) moisture content. Data were fitted to Exponential
and Page model of drying, and the prediction equations
determined. The values of coefficient of variations (R2) for
both the models were found to be above 0.9, suggesting Fig. 5: Variation in moisture content with time (Solar
good fits (Table 1). drying)

43
January - March, 2013 Drying Characteristics of Rose Flowers
Fig. 6: Variation in drying rate with time (Solar
drying)
was faster (30.53 g.g-1 dry matter.h-1), and subsequently
decreased to 2.91 g.g-1 dry matter.h-1 after 13 min of drying
at 50oC (Fig. 7 and 8). The drying proceeded under falling
rate.
During microwave drying, free water in the cells of floral
Fig. 7: Variation in moisture content with time
(Microwave oven drying)
Fig. 8: Variation in drying rate with time (Microwave
oven drying)
44
parts of the flowers got evaporated due to heating. The
flowers without any treatment under microwave drying
were more prone to breakage due to rapid evaporation and
structural collapse. Therefore, drying under microwave was
carried out with silica gel. Paparozzi and McCallster (1988)
also suggested the treatment to prevent breakage of flowers
during drying under microwave drying. Similar results were
also obtained by Geetha et al. (2003) for drying of gerbera
flowers under microwave oven with silica gel.
The observations on drying were fitted to Exponential and
Page model of drying, and prediction equations determined.
The Page model was found to be better fitted with R2 value
of 0.999 (Table 1).
Shade drying
Shade drying took about 5 days to reduce the moisture
content of rose flowers from 80% w.b. to about 5.50 % w.b.
(Table 1) and the rate of drying was 0.09 g.g-1 dry matter.h-1
during the initial period and decreased to 0.007 g.g-1 dry
matter.h-1 with time after five days.
The time taken under shade drying method was more,
compared to other methods, as addition of supplemented
heat to vapourise the free water present in the floral parts
was very small. The results obtained under shade drying
treatment were more or less similar to the one reported by
Simalemga et al. (1990) for tanacetumcinearifolum.
The variation in moisture content and drying rate with
time was observed to be curvilinear, indicating that drying
under shade occurred under falling rate (Fig. 9 and 10). The
observations on drying were fitted to Exponential and Page
model of drying, and both the models were found to be of
reasonably fit. However, the R2 value of Page model was
more than Exponential model (Table 1).
Fig. 9: Variation in moisture content with time (Shade
drying)
Jaydipsinh B. Raol, Mahendrasinh T. Kumpavat and D.M.Vyas JAE : 50 (1)
Fig. 10: Variation in drying rate with time (Shade
drying)
Overall Drying Rate
The overall drying rates for rose flower under different
drying methods were 0.0289, 0.0424, 0.0603, 0.1823,
5.8685, 0.0698 and 0.0103 % per min during hot air oven
drying at 40, 50 and 60oC, vacuum drying at 40oC and 760
mm Hg vacuum, microwave oven drying with silica gel at
50oC, solar drying and shade drying, respectively (Table
1). Maximum overall drying rate of 5.8685 % per min was
found during microwave oven drying with silica gel at 50
0
C, followed by vacuum drying at 40 0C. Minimum overall
drying rate was 0.0103 % per min during shade drying.
CONCLUSIONS
Total drying time for rose flower to reduce from initial
moisture content of about 80% (w.b.) to about 3.00% (w.b.)
under different drying methods was observed as 44, 30, 21,
7 and 18 h during hot air oven drying at 40, 50 and 60oC,
vacuum drying at 40oC and 760 mm Hg vacuum and solar
drying, respectively. Maximum and minimum drying time
for rose flower was 5 days and 13 min during shade and
microwave oven drying, respectively. In all drying methods,
initial drying rate was higher and decreased gradually
with time. The drying behaviour of rose was reasonably
predicated by Exponential and Page’s model, the Page’s
model being better fitted. The drying characteristics (time
and rate of drying) of rose flowers under different drying
methods revealed that the microwave oven drying with
silica gel at 50 0C, followed by vacuum drying at 400C
and 760 mm Hg vacuum was better amongst all the drying
treatments studied.
REFERENCES
Anon. 1997. Dry flowers industry in India. Floriculture
Today, 2(5), 3-16.
45
Anon. 2010. Indian horticulture database. Ministry of
Agriculture, govt. of India, gurgaon, pp: 278.
AOAC. 1995. Official Methods of Analysis. Association of
Official Analytical Chemists, WashingtonDC.
Bhutani J C; Kher M A. 1979. Dehydration of flowers and
foliage. Extension Bulletin, NBRI, Lucknow, pp: 1-20.
Brooker D B; Bakker-Arkema F M; Hall C W. 1974.
Drying cereals grains. The AVI Publishing Co. Inc.,
Connecticut,pp: 265.
Chen W; Gast K L B; Smithy S. 2000. The effect of
different freeze drying processes on moisture content,
colour and physical strength of roses and carnation. Scientia
Hort., 84 (3/4), 321-322.
Cheng H R; Jinchyau P; Hao C K; Xuan W Y; Junjia
H. 2002. The effect of different drying methods on lotus
flowers drying characteristics and sensory evaluation. J.
Agric. Forestry, 51(3), 67-81.
Geetha C K; Manoharan S; Rajeevan P K;
Valasalakumari P K. 2003. Studies on the technology for
dry flower production of gerbera (Gerbera jamesonii Bolus
ex Hook.F). South Indian Hort., 51 (1-6), 347-349.
Kar A; Gupta D K. 2003. Air-drying of osmosed button
mushrooms. J. Food Sci. Technol., 40(1), 23-27.
Pandya H A; Saxena O P; Nell T A; Clark D G. 2001.
Preservation of chrysanthemum sp. by drying. Acta. Hort.,
54, 367-369.
Paparozzi E T; McCallister D E. 1988. Glycerol
and Microwave preservation of Annual Statice
(Liminiumsinuatum Mill). Scientia Hort., 34, 293-299.
Prabhanjan D G; Ramaswamy H S; Raghavan G S V.
1995. Microwave assisted convective air drying of thin lay
carrots. J. Food Engg., 25, 283-294.
Rajeevan P K; Valsalakumari P K. 2004. Advances
in value addition of flowers with special emphasis to oil
production. National Seminar on advances in value addition
of horticultural crops. Navsari Agricultural University,
Navsari.
Ranganna S. 2000. Handbook of analysis and quality
control for fruits and vegetable products. Tata McGraw Hill
Publishing Co. Ltd., New Delhi.
Simalemga T E; Hatibu N; Salokhe V M; Iiangantileke S
G. 1990. Solar drying of agricultural products in Tanzania:
prospects and constraints. Proceedings of International
Agricultural Engineering Conference and Exhibition,
January - March, 2013 Drying Characteristics of Rose Flowers

Bangkok, Thailand, 3-6 Dec., pp: 517-522.
Singh B P N; Narain M; Srivastava R. 1986. Thin layer
drying of paddy. In: Drying of solids, Majumdar A.S. (ed.)
Willey Eastern Ltd., New Delhi, pp:103 -135.
Singh H P. 2000. Current status of floriculture in India.
Floriculture Today, 5(4), 6-11.
Singhal V. 2003. Indian Agriculture. Indian Economic Data
Research Centre, New Delhi, pp: 201.
Sohn K.; Kwon H J; Kim E Y. 2003. Optimum drying
temperature to maintain size and colour of dried rose.
Korean J. Hort. Sci. Technol., 21(2), 141-145.

46
P. Kumar, A. Sarangi, D.K. Singh and S.S. Parihar JAE : 50 (1)
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Water Use Efficiency of Salt Tolerant and Non-Tolerant Wheat

Varieties under Irrigated Saline Regimes
P. Kumar1, A. Sarangi2, D.K. Singh3 and S.S. Parihar4
Manuscript received:May, 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: January, 2013

ABSTRACT

Enhancing productivity from irrigated saline environment is of paramount importance to meet the increasing food
demand in India. An experiment was conducted during rabi seasons of 2009-10 and 2010-11 with different irrigation
water salinity levels and four wheat varieties, including 3 salt tolerant and one non-salt-tolerant.The yield of non-
salt tolerant variety HD-2894 irrigated with ground water (EC 1.7 dS.m-1) was highest (5.25 t.ha-1) with WUE of
18.62 kg.ha-1.mm-1. The salt tolerant variety KRL-1-4, however, produced highest yield of 4.6 t.ha-1, 4.2 t.ha-1 and
3.9 t.ha-1at irrigation water salinity levels of 4, 8 and 12 dS.m-1, respectively, during rabi 2010-11 with average yield
higher by 26% and 41% as compared to non-salt tolerant variety HD2894 at irrigation water salinity levels 8 and
12 dS.m-1, respectively.The average water use efficiency of KRL-1-4 under salinity levels of 4, 8 and12 dS.m-1was
12.51 and 15kg.ha-1.mm-1 as compared to 8.75 and 10.33 kg.ha-1.mm-1 for the non-salt tolerant variety during 2009-
10 and 2010-11, respectively. Highest deposition of salt was at the top 15cm soil depth ranging from 1.21 t.ha-1in
ground water irrigated plot to 6.22 t.ha-1 in plots with salinity level of 12 dS.m-1. About 66% of salt got deposited
in the root zone depth up to 75cm during the crop growth period. It emerged that as the salinity of irrigation water
increases, a switchover from high yielding non-salt-tolerant variety to a salt tolerant variety is desirable to achieve
higher yields and higher water use efficiencies.

Key words: Saline irrigation, salt budget, salt tolerant variety, wheat, water use efficiency

Wheat is grown in India over an area of about 26.7 Mha
with average productivity of 2.7 t.ha-1. Northern states of
India (Punjab, Haryana and and Western Uttar Pradesh)
are major producer of wheat (Anon, 2009). In several
parts of these states, farmers are using saline water for
irrigation. About 32% to 84% of the ground water surveyed
in different Indian States was rated either saline or alkaline
(Minhas, 1996). Irrigation with saline water is affecting
agricultural productivity, and causing hindrances in
sustainable agricultural production. Therefore, use of salt
tolerant varieties besides implementation of judicious water
management techniques would not only enhance yield, but
also optimise the water use effciency (WUE). Jiang et al.
(2012) observed higher water use efficiency (1.25 to 1.63
kg.m-3) by using 300 mm of irrigation water with salinity
varying from 0.65 to 6.1 dS.m-1 and concluded that the
highest yield and water use efficiency can be obtained
by applying a given amount of irrigation under saline
environment. The yield of wheat obtained from experiment
conducted in Hissar region of Haryana was observed to
be 100%, 89% and 60% with irrigation water salinity of
2-4 dS.m-1, 4-6 dS.m-1and 6-8 dS.m-1, respectively (FAO,
1992; Sharma and Minhas, 2005). Sharma and Rao (1998)
reported yield reduction in wheat by 4.2% at 6 dS.m-1, 9.7%
at 9 dS.m-1, 16.3% at 12 dS.m-1 and 22.2% at 18.8 dS.m-
1
using pre-irrigation with non-saline canal water followed
by saline drainage water of varying salinity. Chauhan et
al. (2008) reported wheat yield of 5.5 t.ha-1 using saline
water having salinity of 8 dS.m-1 with pre-sowing irrigation
of good quality water. The soil was of alluvial origin and
ground water salinity ranged from marginally saline (2–6
dS.m-1) to saline (6 dS.m-1). Hamdy et al. (2005) investigated
the possibility of applying supplemental irrigation to wheat
during sensitive crop growth stages of flowering and seed
formation using saline water with salinity ranging from 3
to 9 dS.m-1, and reported wheat yield reductions of 25 per
cent. In another study, Nia et al. (2012) found that grain
yield and yield component of wheat were affected by saline
irrigation water. Ma et al. (2008) observed that the use of
saline water would result in higher salinity of the topsoil
(0-1 m depth) than the subsoil (1.0-1.8 m depth). The salt
concentration increased in the upper 0.80 m depth during

1
Ph.D Scholar, Division of Agricultural Engineering, IARI, New Delhi-110 012; E-mail : paramanand30@gmail.com, 2Senior Scientist, Water
Technology Centre, IARI, New Delhi - 110012 (Corresponding Author, e-mail asarangi@iari.res.in), 3Senior Scientist, Water Technology
Centre, IARI, New Delhi - 110012, dksingh@iari.res.in, 4Principal Seientist, Water Technology Centre, IARI, New Delhi - 110012; ssp_wtc@
rediffmail.com

47
January - March, 2013 Water Use Efficiency of Salt Tolerant and Non-Tolerant Wheat Varieties under Irrigated Saline Regimes

the month of October, and salt leaching occurred up to 1.5
m of soil depth during wet season. However, yield loss was
minimal in high rainfall areas with saline irrigation water
because of leaching of the salt from crop root zone. But, in
semi-arid and arid regions, leaching of salt from root zone
was reported to be minimal affecting the crop yield (Naresh
et al., 1993; Kalra et al., 2007). Research investigations on
wheat yield under irrigated saline environment indicated
that salinity level in the crop root zone plays a significant
role in deciding the crop yield, besides other causative
factors (Sharma et al., 1991; Khosla and Gupta, 1997; Ma
et al., 2008; Ghane et al., 2009). Moreover, the expected
yield losses as a function of quantity and quality of water
applied for irrigation necessitates formulation of guidelines
for effective utilization of marginal quality waters. There
is lack of information on the WUE of both salt tolerant
and non-salt tolerant varieties on water use efficiency of
wheat under irrigated saline environment. Keeping this in
view, an experiment was undertaken to study the yield of
salt tolerant wheat varieties under different irrigation water
salinity levels.
45, 45-60 and 60-75 cm were collected from five locations
of the experiment area, and analyzed for mechanical
composition and soil physical parameters before conduction
of experiment, during the experiment and after harvesting of
the crop. The soil of experimental field was sandy loam to
loam in texture with moderate water holding capacity and
well levelled topography. Field capacity of the soil ranged
from 20.45 to 33 % (w/w) and permanent wilting point
ranged from 9.5 to 15 % (w/w) at different depths up to
75cm. Soil physical and chemical parameters are presented
in Table1. The rainfall during crop growing period of rabi
2009-10 and 2010-11 are presented in Fig.1.
Design of Experiment
The experiment was split-plot design with plot sizes of
5m × 1.6 m and total area encompassing all the treatment
combinations and replications were 1,029 m2, having four

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Study Area
Field experiment was conducted at the Water Technology
Centre research farm of Indian Agricultural Research
Institute, New Delhi during rabi seasons of 2009-10 and
2010-11. The WTC experimental farm is located between
28° 37’ 22” to 28° 39’ 00” N latitude and 770 8’ 45’’ to 770
10’ 24’’ E longitudes with an average elevation of 230 m Fig. 1: Weekly rainfall data during the crop period
above mean sea level. Soil samples from 0-15, 15-30, 30- for rabi 2009-10 and 2010-11

Table 1. Mechanical and physical soil parameters in experimental field

Soil depth (cm)

Particular 0-15 15-30 30-45 45-60 60-75
Mechanical composition
i Sand 52.4 53.7 44 39 38
ii Silt 21 19 23 25 27
iii Clay 26.6 27.3 33 36 34
Textural class Sandy Loam Sandy Loam Loam Loam Clay Loam
Soil physical constant
i Bulk density (kg.m-3) 1660 1700 1880 1670 1830
ii Saturated hydraulic conductivity
24.7 26.2 18.6 160.8 19.5
(cm.h-1)
iii Saturation (θs) 31 35 37 38 46
iv Field capacity (FC) (% w/w,0.03 Mpa) 20.45 22.02 30.59 32.8 33.0
v Permanent wilting point (PWP)
9.5 10.2 13.7 14.7 15.0
(%,w/w,105 Mpa)

48
P. Kumar, A. Sarangi, D.K. Singh and S.S. Parihar JAE : 50 (1)
irrigation water salinity levels (Control (ground water) (S1),
4 dS.m-1(S2); 8 dS.m-1 (S3) and 12 dS.m-1(S4) artificial saline
water). Three salts (NaCl, MgSO4, CaCl2) were mixed in
groundwater to prepare artificial saline water of desired
salinity. The control plots were irrigated using ground water,
which varied from 1.5 to 1.7dS.m-1 during the experiment
period of two years. The experiment was conducted with
four wheat varieties, including 3 salt tolerant (KRL-210
(V1), KRL-1-4 (V2), KRL-19 (V3)) and one non-salt-
tolerant variety HD2894 (V4). Wheat crop was sown on 10th
December during both the years of experimentation.
Irrigation Scheduling
Irrigation was applied based on the soil moisture status of
the soil. Irrigation water requirement in designed plots was
estimated using the standard procedure of moisture deficit
and the crop root zone depths (Michael, 2010). Irrigation
water was applied five times each during both years of
experiment. The irrigation scheduling was based on soil
moisture deficit (SMD) criterion with periodic monitoring
of soil moisture using soil moisture sensors operating on the
principle of Frequency Domain Reflectometer (FDR).The
irrigation water applied through five irrigations were 258
mm, and effective rainfall was 14.14 mm during rabi 2009-
10. During rabi 2010-11, the total depth of five irrigations
was 250 mm and effective rainfall was 32.2 mm.
Soil Salinity and Water Use Efficiency
Soil samples were collected from five depths at 0-15, 15-
30, 30-45, 45-60 and 60-90 cm before and after irrigation
for determination of the salinity in soil suspension extract
(EC2). The crop growth and physiological parameters
(number of tillers per plant, plant height, root depth, canopy
cover, number of spikes or effective tillers per m2, spike
length) were meaured. Besides, yield attributes (number
of grain per spike, grain yield, thousand grain weight
and harvest index) were recorded. The canopy cover was
estimated by taking the image of the cropped field and then
using image interpretation technique to estimate the canopy
cover. Water use efficiency was determined by dividing the
marketable grain yield by the water used to meet the crop
evapotranspiration requirement.
Salt Budgeting in Root Zone
Soil salinity at different root zone depths of wheat crop
before and after harvest was estimated by soil sampling
before sowing and after harvesting of crop. EC of soil
sample was measured in 1:2 soil water suspension, and the
quantity of salt (t.ha-1) was estimated. Salt budgeting was
carried out using the equation:
49
Srz= Sbs+ Sai – Sah …(1)
Where,
Srz = Salt stored in different root zone depths, t.ha-1,
Sbs = Salt before sowing in different root zone depths,
t.ha-1,
Sai = Salt applied through irrigation water, t.ha-1, and
Sah = Salt in different root zone depths after harvesting,
t.ha-1.
The estimated unit of soil salinity in dS.m-1 under different
salinity levels and root zone depths were converted to t.ha-1
using the conversion formulae:
…(2)
Where,
SDi = Salt deposited in ith layer, t.ha-1,
ECi = Salinity in ith layer,dS.m-1,
Df = Dilution factor (viz. for EC2 the Df will be 2),
BDi = Bulk density in ith layer, kg.m-3, and
Vsi = Volume of soil in ith layer per hectare, m3.ha-1.
Statistical Analysis
The generated data were analyzed statistically using
MSTATC software for estimation of analysis of variance
(ANOVA), and the mean value of three replications was
used in the analysis. The critical differences between the
observed values under different treatment combinations
were also estimated to understand the significant effect
of different treatments on yield of both salt and non-salt
tolerant wheat varieties.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Salt Dynamics and Budgeting in Crop Root Zone
Maximum EC1:2(0.2 dSm-1) was found in upper layer (0-15
cm) and minimum EC1:2 (0.11dS.m-1) was observed in lower
layer (30-45 cm) of the soil profile before sowing of wheat.
Soil salinitywas maximum (2.15 dS.m-1) at 0-15 cm and
0.74 dS.m-1 in 60-75 cm depth at S4 (12 dS.m-1) treatment
plot after harvesting, while minimum EC1:2(0.331 dS.m-1)
was in S1 at both 45-60 cm and 60-90 cm soil depths. The
quantity of salt applied and quantity of salt remained are
presented in Table 2. Budgeting of salt at different root
zone depths showed that the salt deposition was maximum
(6.22 t.ha-1) at 0-15 cm depth for S4 and minimum (0.74
t.ha-1) at 60-90 cm depth for S1. This finding was in line
with the results reported by Ma et al. (2008), where the
salt concentration was more in the top layer as compared to
other layers. Maximum average salinity (3.41 dS.m-1) was
January - March, 2013 Water Use Efficiency of Salt Tolerant and Non-Tolerant Wheat Varieties under Irrigated Saline Regimes

Table 2. EC1:2 of soil before and after crop season

Soil depth Salinity level EC1:2 of soil before EC1:2after harvest Salt deposition
(cm) sowing (dS.m-1) (dS.m-1) (t.ha-1)
S1 0.2 0.58 1.21
S2 0.2 1.39 3.79
0-15
S3 0.2 1.97 5.64
S4 0.2 2.15 6.22
S1 0.12 0.412 0.95
S2 0.12 0.815 2.27
15-30
S3 0.12 1.175 3.44
S4 0.12 1.154 3.37
S1 0.11 0.357 0.89
S2 0.11 0.652 1.96
30-45
S3 0.11 0.851 2.67
S4 0.11 0.901 2.86
S1 0.13 0.326 0.63
S2 0.13 0.559 1.38
45-60
S3 0.13 0.68 1.76
S4 0.13 0.886 2.42
S1 0.12 0.331 0.74
S2 0.12 0.512 1.38
60-90
S3 0.12 0.539 1.47
S4 0.12 0.74 2.18

observed in S4 treatment, and minimum average salinity

(0.884 dS.m-1) in S1 level in the root zone depth. It was also
observed that 66% of the total applied salt got deposited
in the root zone depth, with highest salt deposition (36%)
in S4 level. Overall, it was observed that the deposition of
salt in the root zone increased for treatments with higher
irrigation water salinity for all wheat varieties.

Root Growth under Saline Environment

The rooting depth of wheat was observed to be more during
rabi 2010-11 than during rabi 2009-10. This might be
attributed to higher rainfall (46 mm) during rabi 2010-11,
Fig. 2: Depth of root under different treatments of
resulting in better crop growth and leaching of salt from
salinity for rabi 2009-10 and 2010-11
crop root zone as compared to 20.6 mm rainfall during
2009-10. Maximum root depth of 88.2 cm and 90.00 cm
was observed in the treatment S3V1 during rabi 2009-10 Grain Yield Variations under Different Salinity Levels
and 2010-11, respectively. Minimum root zone depth of The grain yield of wheat was higher during rabi 2010-11 than
71.2 cm and 73.3 cm was observed for the treatment S2V4 during rabi 2009-10 due to higher rainfall and favourable
during rabi 2009-10 and 2010-11, respectively (Fig. 2). climatic condition (Table 3). Maximum yield was observed
It was observed from the figure that the non-salt tolerant
in treatment S1V4 (5.25 t.ha-1) during rabi 2010-11, and
wheat variety HD-2894 exhibited higher rooting depth at
minimum yield (1.72 t.ha-1) in treatment S4V4 during rabi
higher salinity levels.

50
P. Kumar, A. Sarangi, D.K. Singh and S.S. Parihar JAE : 50 (1)

Table 3. Grain yield of different wheat varieties under of salt tolerant variety KRL-1-4 was higher by 26% and
varying salinity levels 41% during both years as compared to the non-salt tolerant
variety HD2894 under irrigation water salinity of 8 and
Yield(t.ha-1) 12 dS.m-1, respectively. Analysis of variance of yield data
Treatment 2009-10 2010-11 indicated that the critical difference (CD) at 0.05 probability
S1V1 3.81 4.50 level of significance was 0.46 and 0.57 for salinity levels,
S1V2 4.09 5.13 0.29 and 0.36 for different varieties and 0.57 and 0.73 for the
S1V3 3.94 4.75
interaction of salinity and variety for rabi 2009-10 and rabi
2010-11, respectively (Table 3). It was observed from Table
S1V4 5.03 5.25
3 that there was no significant difference in yield between
S2V1 3.33 4.20 the salt tolerant varieties at different salinity levels, but the
S2V2 3.85 4.60 yield difference was significant between the salt tolerant and
S2V3 3.73 4.40 non-salt tolerant variety (HD-2894) for all salinity levels.
S2V4 2.74 3.46 These findings corroborated the results of grain yield under
S3V1 3.12 4.00 irrigated saline environment as reported by Chauhan et al.
(2008) and Sharma and Rao (1998).
S3V2 3.27 4.20
S3V3 3.15 4.10 Water Use Efficiency of Crop Varieties at Different
S3V4 2.68 2.85 Salinity Levels
S4V1 2.82 3.70 Water Use Efficiency (WUE) is greatly affected by the
S4V2 3.11 3.90 wheat grain yield under different treatment combinations.
S4V3 2.90 3.80 WUE was estimated for different varieties under varying
S4V4 1.72 2.43 irrigation regimes with salinity levels of 4, 8 and 12 dS.m-1.
CD (P= 0.5%)
It was observed from the experiment of both years that
the maximum water use efficiency of 18.48 kg.ha-1.mm-1
Salinity 0.4598 0.5726
and 18.62 kg.ha-1.mm-1 were obtained from treatment S1V4
Variety 0.2870 0.3650 (control plot) during rabi 2009-10 and 2010-11, respectively
Salinity X Variety 0.5740 0.7302 (Fig. 4). It was also observed from Fig. 4 that the minimum
WUE of 6.33 kg.ha-1.mm-1 and 8.62 kg.ha-1.mm-1 were
2009-10. The experiment showed that crop yield decreased observed in treatment S4V4during 2009-10 and 2010-11,
with increasing salinity (Fig.3a) and the salt tolerant variety respectively. At salinity levels of 4, 8 and 12 dS.m-1, the
V2(KRL-1-4) resulted in better yield than other salt tolerant salt tolerant varieties resulted in WUE ranging from 10.08
and non-salt tolerant varieties (Fig.3b). The average yield to 16.30 kg.ha-1.mm-1, whereas WUE of non-salt tolerant

Fig. 3: Effect of salinity levels (a) and varieties (b) on grain yield of wheat

51
January - March, 2013 Water Use Efficiency of Salt Tolerant and Non-Tolerant Wheat Varieties under Irrigated Saline Regimes
Fig. 4: Water use efficiency of wheat varieties under
different salinity levels
variety varied from 6.33 to 12.27 kg.ha-1.mm-1for both
years. However, at salinity level of 12 dS.m-1(S4), the salt
tolerant varieties KRL-210, KRL-1-4 and KRL-19 had
WUE varying from 10.35 to 13.83 kg.ha-1.mm-1, which
were higher than the WUE of non-salt tolerant variety
(HD-2894) for both years. Singh et al. (2006) reported
variation in WUE of wheat from 12.2 to 15.6 kg.ha-1.mm-1
under irrigated saline conditions ranging from 2 dS.m-1 to
3.75 dS.m-1. Moreover, at higher salinity levels of 8 and
12 dS.m-1, the average water use efficiency of salt tolerant
varieties was more (12.63 and 13.23 kg.ha-1.mm-1) than
the non-salt tolerant variety (7.47 and 9.97 kg.ha-1.mm-1).
It was concluded that the salt tolerant varieties can be
recommended at higher salinity levels for enhancing yield
and water use efficiency. This study also corroborated the
finding of Dutta et al. (1998), in which the salt tolerant
wheat variety KRL-1-4 was observed to yield 3 to 3.5 t.ha-
1
under irrigated saline conditions. However, it was observed
from the experimental results that the salt tolerant variety
KRL 1-4 may be recommended for enhancing productivity
from irrigated saline environment with irrigation water
salinity exceeding 4 dS.m-1.
CONCLUSIONS
The salt tolerant wheat variety KRL-1-4 gave highest
yield at irrigation water salinity levels of 8 and 12 dS.m-1.
The average yield of KRL-1-4 was higher by 26% and
41% compared to the non-salt tolerant variety HD2894
under irrigation water salinity levels of 8 and 12 dS.m-1,
respectively. The root zone depth was observed to be more
for the salt non-tolerant variety HD-2894 at higher salinity
levels as compared to the salt tolerant variety KRL-1-4.
Moreover, the water use efficiency of the salt-tolerant
varieties at salinity levels of 8 and 12 dSm-1 ranged from a
52
minimum of 10.35kg.ha-1.mm-1for KRL-210 to a maximum
of 14.88 kg.ha-1.mm-1 for KRL-1-4. It was concluded that
salt tolerant wheat varieties would increase the yield and
water use efficiency under irrigated saline environment.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to acknowledge the funding received
from National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) of
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under
the sub project entitled” Decision Support System for
enhancing productivity in irrigated saline environment
using remote sensing, modelling and GIS” for undertaking
this experiment at Water Technology Centre, IARI, New
Delhi, India.
REFERENCES
Anon. 2009.Status Paper on Wheatin India. Directorate
of Wheat Development, Department of Agriculture & Co-
Operation, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi, India.
Chauhan C P S; Singh RB; Gupta SK. 2008. Supplemental
irrigation of wheat with saline water. Agric.Water Manage.,
95, 253-258.
Datta K K; Sharma V P; Sharma D P. 1998. Estimation
of a production function for wheat under saline conditions.
Agric. Water Manage., 36, 85–94.
FAO .1992. The use of saline waters for crop production,
Irrigation and drainage.Paper 48, Rome, Italy.
Ghane E; Feizi M; Mostafazadeh-Fard B; Landi E. 2009.
Water productivity of winter wheat in different irrigation/
planting methods with the use of saline irrigation water. Int.
J. Agric. Biol., 11, 131–137.
Hamdy A; Sardo V; Ghanem K A F. 2005. Saline water in
supplemental irrigation of wheat and barley under rainfed
agriculture. Agric. Water Manage., 78, 122–127.
Jiang J; Huo Z; Feng S; Zhang C.2012.Effect of irrigation
amount and water salinity on water consumption and water
productivity of spring wheat in Northwest China. Field
Crops Research, 37, 78–88.
Kalra N; Chakraborty D; Kumar P R; Jolly M; Sharma
P K. 2007. An approach to bridging yield gaps, combining
response to water and other resource inputs for wheat in
northern India, using research trials and farmers’ fields data.
Agric. Water Manage., 93, 54-64.
Khosla B K; Gupta R K. 1997. Response of wheat to
saline irrigation and drainage.Agric. Water Manage., 32,
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285–291.
Ma W; Mao Z; Yu Z; Mensvoor M E F; Driessen P M.
2008. Effects of saline water irrigation on soil salinity and
yield of winter wheat–maize in North China Plain. Irrigation
and Drainage Systems, 22,3–18.
Michael A M. 2010. Iriigation, Theory and Practice.2nd
Edition.Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd., 518-526.
Minhas P S.1996. Saline water management for irrigation
in India, Agric. Water Manage., 30, 1-24.
Naresh R K; Minhas P S; Goyal A K; Chauhan C P S;
Gupta R K. 1993.Conjunctive use of saline and non-saline
waters. II. Field comparison of cyclic use and mixing for
wheat. Agric. Water Manage., 23, 139–148.
Nia H S; Zarea M J; Rejali F; Varma A. 2012. Yield
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and yield components of wheat as affected by salinity and
inoculation with Azospirillum strains from saline or non-
saline soil, J. Saudi Society of Agric. Sci., 11, 113–121.
Sharma D E; Singh K N; Rao K V G K; Kumbhare P S.
1991. Irrigation of wheat with saline drainage water on a
sandy loam soil. Agric. Water Manage., 19, 223–233.
Sharma D P; Rao K VGK. 1998.Strategy for long term use
of saline drainage water for irrigation in semi-arid regions.
Soil Tillage Res., 48, 287-295.
Sharma B R; Minhas P S. 2005.Strategies for managing
saline/alkali watersfor sustainable agricultural production
in South Asia. Agric. Water Manage., 78, 136-151.
Singh R;Van Dam J C; Feddes R A. 2006.Water
productivity analysis of irrigated crops in Sirsa district,
India. Agric.Water Manage., 82, 253 – 278.
January - March, 2013 Adequacy of Blanching on Quality Characteristics of Medicinal Indian Borage Leaves
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Research Note

Adequacy of Blanching on Quality Characteristics of

Medicinal Indian Borage Leaves
Suchismita Dwivedy1 and Kalpana Rayaguru2
Manuscript received: June,2011 Revised manuscript accepted: November, 2012

ABSTRACT

Leaves of Indian borage (Coleus aromaticus) are rich in medicinal qualities, and need to be preserved immediately
after harvest. Blanching is a prerequisite for preservation of green leafy vegetables. However, it may cause partial
destruction of some active ingredients. The objective of the present study was to identify a suitable blanching
treatment (hot water, chemical, microwave) and condition (temperature, time and power) for Coleus aromaticus
leaves that ensures enzyme inactivation and maximum retention of therapeutic value (total phenolics and antioxidant
properties) with desirable sensory properties (colour and shape). Retention of therapeutic value and sensory score
was comparatively higher in microwave blanched sample over both hot water and chemically blanched samples.
Blanching time of 80 s and 60 s was adequate for hot water and chemically blanched samples, respectively. Microwave
blanching at 900,720,540,360 and 180 W power required 30,40,50,70,80 s, respectively, for complete inactivation
of peroxidase. As the microwave power decreased, blanching time increased. However, the increase was significant
at 360 and 180W power. Retention of total phenolics and antioxidant properties was better in samples blanched
at 540W. From the sensory point of view, microwave blanching proved to be better than hot water and chemical
blanching for flatness to the shape of dried leaves.

Key words: Indian borage, blanching, enzyme inactivation, therapeutic value

Coleus aromaticus is an important aromatic herb, belonging
to the family Laminaceae, which is routinely grown as a
traditional medicinal herb in India. Coleus aromaticus is
commonly known as Indian borage. It is a large succulent
herb with highly aromatic leaves, and found abundantly in
India and South East Asia. It is frost sensitive, and grows
better in sub-tropical and tropical locations. The leaves are
traditionally used for the treatment of stomach disorder,
asthma, epilepsy and renal diseases. These are reported to
have anti-oxidant and anti- microbial properties (Vijaya et
al., 2008; Valera et al., 2003; Bos et al., 1983). Fresh or
dried leaves are also used for culinary purposes in most of
the countries for flavouring, seasoning and as condiment
and spice for different food preparations. Coleus leaves
are a store house of vitamins and minerals. They also
contain immense variety of bio-active non-nutritive health
promoting factors such as antioxidants, total phenolics and
dietary fibre. Their higher moisture content renders them
perishable. Seasonal availability limits their utilization
all round the year. Hence, there is a need to preserve this
nature’s gift through proper processing techniques for safe
storage with efficient nutrition retention. (Warrier and
Nambiar, 1995).
Peroxidases are enzymes present in the plant tissues that
cause oxidation of many compound in the presence of
oxygen. When peroxidases react with hydrogen peroxide,
they form phototoxic free radicals which in turn cause
loss of vitamins and develop cold damage symptoms. One
common technique employed to arrest enzyme activity
and associated changes before processing is blanching.
Blanching consists of mild heat treatment of leaves in
different heating systems to varying time period. It is
influenced by various factors such as blanching method,
temperature, time, physical and physiological characteristics
of leaves and uniformity of heat distribution and penetration.
These factors are highly specific (Gupta et al., 2008) for
different leaves as the surface area exposed per unit mass
varies from one to another. Since, the leaves differ in size,
shape, heat conductivity and natural levels of their enzymes,
blanching treatments have to be established for individual
variety on experimental basis. As blanching is a prerequisite

1
Research Associate and 2.Associate professor, Department of Agricultural Processing and Food Engineering, College of Agricultural
Engineering and Technology, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology,Bhubaneswar-751003. Corresponding author e-mail: suchi.44@
gmail.com

54
Suchismita Dwivedy and Kalpana Rayaguru JAE : 50 (1)
treatment for preserving leaves, it is essential to establish
the influence of blanching conditions on herbal nutraceutical
source. Further, inadequate blanching has a negative effect
on quality of a finished product. Adequacy of blanching is
determined in terms of inactivation of most important and
heat resistant enzyme peroxidase in the leaves. If these
are destroyed, the other significant enzymes would also
be inactivated. The present investigation, therefore, was
carried out for the establishment of the blanching treatment
and conditions for coleus leaves that ensures enzyme
inactivation.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sample Preparation and Pretreatment
Fresh matured leaves were collected from the medicinal
garden of College of Agriculture, Orissa University of
Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar. After collection
of samples, these were washed properly with cool water
to remove dirt and foreign particles. Surface moisture was
removed by wiping with tissue paper and then used for
blanching. The initial moisture content of the leaves was
determined by hot air oven method. The average moisture
content of three replications was taken into consideration.
Hot water blanching (HWB)
About 200 ml water was taken in a beaker and heated till
the temperature was raised to 80ºC. A water bath was used
to maintain the temperature. About 50g of leaves were
dipped in boiling water and the timer was started. The ratio
of water to leaves was 4:1(v/w).After every 10 s, 5g of leaf
was removed from the beaker and immediately put in cold
water. This sample was then homogenized in a mortar-
pestle, filtered through muslin cloth for test on presence
of peroxidase enzyme. The process was repeated for each
sample blanched at prefixed interval.
Chemical blanching (HWKMS3)
The samples were prepared as discussed above in hot
water blanching (HWB), and 50 g of leaves were dipped in
potassium metabisulphite (KMS 3%, w/v) solution and the
timer was started. The process was continued and repeated
as explained under HWB.
Microwave blanching (MWB)
About 50g of sample was placed on a tissue paper on the
rotated turntable inside the microwave chamber. Microwave
oven (LG Intellowave 3850w2G031A) was allowed to
operate at 900W power. At 10s intervals, the microwave
was switched to pause mode and about 5g of sample was
taken out, followed by cold water dipping in order to avoid
55
residual heating effect. Peroxidase test was then carried
out. The tests were carried out at other power levels of
720W, 540W, 360W, and 180W. All tests were carried
out in triplicates, and the average values considered for
analysis.
Chemical Test for Adequacy of Blanching
One gram guaicol was dissolved in about 50 ml of 50%
ethyl alcohol and the volume was made up to 100 ml with
the same solvent. Peroxide solution 0.3%-5 ml perhydrol
was brought to 150ml with distilled water. One millilitre
of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was added to a test tube
containing the homogenized sample, and 0.5 ml of guaicol
solution was added. The tube was kept aside for some
time for development of colour. Appearance of red colour
confirmed the presence of peroxidase. The process was
repeated till the red colour disappeared. The time taken from
zero min to the time when red colour was absent was called
the blanching time for the sample under study.
Quality Analysis of Leaves
Microwave assisted extraction (MAE)
Extraction of plant material was done by closed system of
microwave assisted extraction system by Multiwave 3000-
801V (Anton Par) following the method of Eskilson et al.,
2000. Ground plant sample (2 g) and 20ml of methanol:
water (6:4) as solvents was taken in each vessel of the
extraction unit. The temperature was maintained at 80°C
for 25 min during the procedure of extraction. During
extraction, the initial temperature was 27°C-34°C with
initial pressure between 2.6 bars to 3.7 bars. After cooling,
the temperature and pressure were maintained at 30°C-40°C
and 4.8 to 5.0 bar, respectively.
Estimation of total phenolics (TP)
The amount of total phenolics in the extract was determined
according to the Folin-ciocalteau procedure modified by
Jayapraksh et al., 2006. Sample was dissolved in methanol:
water(6:4v/v) to make a volume 0.2 ml, which was then
mixed with 1 ml of 10 fold diluted F-C reagent and 0.8 ml
of 7.5% of Na2CO3 solution. After standing for 30 min at
room temperature, the absorbance was measured at 765 nm
using Perkin-Elmer UV visible spectrophotometer by taking
0.2 ml of methanol: water (6:4v/v) in the place of plant
sample as blank. The total phenolics in the test sample were
calculated from the standard curve, and were expressed as
Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE) per gram of sample.
Evaluation of antioxidant property (AOP)
Phospho-Molybdenum method was followed for evaluation
January - March, 2013 Adequacy of Blanching on Quality Characteristics of Medicinal Indian Borage Leaves

of antioxidant activity. The assay was on reduction of MO
(VI) to MO (V) by the extract and subsequent formation of
a green phosphate/MO (V) complex at acid pH. The total
antioxidant capacity of plant extract as evaluated by the
method of Pierto et al., 1999.
Phospho-Molybdenum reagent was prepared as per the
standard procedure. An aliquot of 0.1ml of plant extract
having 10µg of polyphenol was mixed with 1ml of Phospho-
Molybdenum reagent using 0.1ml of methanol in place of
plant extract. The tubes were capped and incubated in a
boiling water bath at 95°C for 90 min. The samples were
then cooled to room temperature. The absorbance of aqueous
solute as one of each was measured at 695 nm against a
blank in a Perkin –Elmer UV-visible spectrophotometer.
Sensory Evaluation
Sensory evaluation was carried out by a trained panel of
ten judges of different age groups, having different eating
habits. Sensory characteristics of dried leaf samples were
determined as an average score of the ten-member consumer
panel using 9-point hedonic scale. Likeness and dislikeness
of hedonic scale was indicated by flatness and distortedness,
respectively, for shape. Similarly, the intensity of greenness
was expressed for colour. The sensory characteristics
evaluated were colour and shape. The sensory data on
quality characteristics were statistically analyzed for
different blanching conditions.
Statistical Analysis
Analysis of variance was applied to test the differences in
quality characteristics (TP and AOP) and sensory evaluation
(colour, and shape) under different conditions of blanching.
Analysis was done using the statistical package GENSTAT
(9.0, trial version) for quality and sensory evaluation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Adequacy of Blanching Methods
Peroxidase is the most thermally stable enzyme present
in plant systems for which it is used as an index of the
effectiveness of blanching treatments. If this enzyme
is inactivated, other enzymatic systems responsible for
tissue degradation is also inactivated. Table 1 indicates
the results of standardization of adequacy of blanching. It
was observed that a blanching time of 80s and 60s were
adequate for hot water blanching (HWB) and chemically
treated (HWBKMS3) samples, respectively. Microwave
blanching at 900,720, 540, 360 and 180W power required
30,40,50,70,80s, respectively, for complete inactivation
of peroxidase. Blanching time increased with decrease in
microwave power levels. However, the increase was not
significant between 900 to 720W, and 720 to 540W. At
360W and 180W power, blanching time was noticed to be
significantly different than those at higher power levels.
Effect of Blanching Methods on Quality
Characteristics
In order to study the effect of adequacy of blanching on
therapeutic and sensory characteristics of the leaves, a
comparison was made with those of fresh leaves. Table 1
indicates that fresh leaves contained 1180 mg.100g-1 and
516 µm.g-1 of TP and AOP, respectively, on dry weight
basis. Total phenolics and antioxidant values were found to
range between 930 and 1158 mg.100g-1, 412 to 492µm.g-1,
respectively, after blanching by various methods. The losses
of total phenolics and the antioxidant activity was more in
case of hot water blanching than microwave blanching. It

Table 1. Adequacy of blanching methods and its effect on quality characteristics

Methods of Description Time taken, Total phenolics, Antioxidant, Chlorophyll,

blanching s mg.100g -1
µm.g -1
mg.g-1
Fresh (unblanched) - - 1180d 516d 5.67e
Hot water 80°C 80e 930a 412a 4.78b
KMS 80°C 60cd 965ab 417 a 4.89bc
900W 30a 1135c 485bc 5.12bcd
720W 40ab 1142cd 478bc 5.23cd
Microwave 540W 50bc 1158cd 492cd 5.45de
360W 70de 1122c 462b 5.05bcd
180W 100f 980b 429a 4.33a
The values having same superscript in a column are not significantly different at p<0.05
*

56
Suchismita Dwivedy and Kalpana Rayaguru JAE : 50 (1)
Table 2. Effect of blanching methods on sensory characteristics
Method of
Description Colour
blanching
Fresh(unblanched) - -
Hot water 80 C
o
7.5ab
KMS 80°C 8.0b
900W 8.0b
720W 8.0b
Microwave 540W 8.0b
360W 8.0b
180W 7.0a
* Preference for shape is relative flatness
** The values having same superscript in a column are not significantly different at p<0.05
was observed that though TP and AOP values were slightly
higher in case of HWBKMS3 blanched samples than those
of HWB samples, the difference was not significant. On
the contrary, the microwave blanched samples at all power
levels (except 180W) showed a significantly higher value
for both the qualities than those of HWB and chemically
blanched samples. The retention of TP and AOP was higher
at 540W, and was not significantly different than those of
fresh leaves. However, blanching at 180W reduced both the
properties drastically, and may not be a suitable blanching
condition. Similar results were observed in case of total
chlorophyll content of fresh and blanched samples. Except
180W, the power level did not have significant influence on
reducing the chlorophyll content of the leaves. Maximum
chlorophyll retention was observed in the samples dried at
a power level of 540W.
Effect of Blanching Methods on Sensory Characteristics
Table 2 indicates the sensory properties of the leaves in
terms of colour and shape. Sensory score on colour did not
show much variation with blanching method and power
level, except the samples blanched at 180W. The sensory
scores for shape showed significant difference among the
methods. The preference was for the relative flatness of the
leaves. Both HWB and HWBKMS3 samples became soft
and lost the contour of leaves for which it was difficult to
be handled for further processing. Microwave blanched
samples became relatively flat and got better acceptability
with higher scores. However, with higher power (900W),
the edges were seen to be distorted while the samples
blanched at 180W maintained the flatness but became dark
in colour. It was inferred that hot water blanching may not be
a suitable pre-treatment for leaves to be dried subsequently.
Microwave blanching may be a better proposition as a
57
Shape Remarks
- -
6.5a Soft and tender
6.5a Soft and tender
8.0bc Flat with shrink edges
8.5c Flat
8.5c Flat
8.0bc Flat
7.0ab Flat but dark
pre-treatment for drying of leaves. Previous studies have
also shown promise for the use of an industrial microwave
system. It was found that leafy vegetables were effectively
blanched by microwave. Among the important findings were
retention of ascorbic acid and carotenoid values and very
short processing time compared to conventional water or
chemical blanching (Gupta et al., 2008; Brewer et al., 1995).
The present finding corroborates to the above findings.
CONCLUSIONS
Hot water blanching is not suitable for leaves to be dried
subsequently. Microwave blanching may be a better way
as a pre-treatment for drying of leaves. This adds flatness
to the shape of the dried leaves. Microwave blanching has
shorter blanching time requirement. Further, it is a dry
blanching method because of which the handling of leaves
becomes easy during subsequent processing operations. It
was inferred that blanching Coleus leaves at 540W enabled
the leaves to retain maximum therapeutic as well as sensory
characteristics.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided
by Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology,
Bhubaneswar for carrying out the present research work.
REFERENCES
Bos R; Hendriks H; Van Os F H L. 1983. The composition
of the essential oil in the leaves of Coleus aromaticus
Bentham and their importance as a component of the
Species antiaphthosae Ph. Ned. Ed. V. Pharmacy World
and Science, 5, 129-130.
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Brewer M S; Begum S; Bozeman A. 1995.Microwave
and conventional blanching methods on chemical, sensory
and colour characteristics of frozen broccoli. J. Food Qual.,
18, 479-493.
Eskilson P; Hellstrom G; Claesson J; Bolomberg T;
Sanner B. 2000. Earth Energy Designer-EED version
2.0.
Gupta Sheetal; Laxmi Jyothi A; Prakash Jamuna.
2008. Effect of different blanching treatments on ascorbic
acid retention in green leafy vegetables. Natural product
Radiance, Department of studies in food Science and
Nutrition, 7(2), 111-116.
Jayaprakasha G K; Jaganmohan Rao L; Sakariah K K.
2006. Antioxidant activities of curcumin,demethoxycurcumin
and bisdemethoxycurcumin, Food Chemistry, 98(4), 720-
724.
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Padma P R; Bhuvaneswari V; Chelvi S K. 1988. The
activities of enzymic antioxidant in selected green leaves.
Indian J. Nutr. Diet, 35, 1-3.
Pierto P; Pineda M; Aguilar M. 1999. Spectrophotometric
quantification of antioxidant capacity through the formation
of a phosphomolybdenum complex; specific application to
the determination of vitamin E. Anal. Biochem., 269(2),
337-341.
Valera D; Rivas R; Avila J L. 2003. The essential oil of Coleus
amboinicus Loureiro chemical composition and evaluation of
insect anti-feedant effects. CIENCIA, 11(2), 113-118.
Vijaya Kumar S; Syed M A; Badami S; Anil T M; David
Banji. 2008. Anti bacterial activity of aqueous extract of
Coleus amboinicus. Pharmacology online Newsletter, 3,224-
226.
Warrier P K; Nambiar V P. 1995. Indian medicinal plants.
Orient Longman Private Limited.
 PHE-11/12

L. Ravikanth, D. S. Jayas, K. Alagusundaram, V. Chelladurai JAE : 50 (1)

Journal of Agricultural Engineering Vol. 50 (1): January - March, 2013

Research Note

Measurement of Physical Dimensions of Mung Bean

L. Ravikanth1, D. S. Jayas2, K. Alagusundaram3 and V. Chelladurai4
Manuscript received: May, 2012 Revised manuscript accepted: December, 2012

ABSTRACT

Physical dimensions of mung bean (Vigna radiate) are essential to design equipment for handling, conveying,
separation, drying, aeration, storage and processing of mung bean. Physical dimensions (area, perimeter, maximum
radius, minimum radius, mean radius, major axis length and minor axis length) were measured as a function of
moisture content in the range of 9.9 to 18.3% w.b. using digital image processing technique. Four hundred and fifty
individual kernels were selected randomly for each moisture content and colour image of individual kernels using
a digital camera. Of the seven morphological features analyzed, four features (area, perimeter, maximum radius and
mean radius) of mung bean were significantly (α=0.05) different at different moisture contents. These four features
increased linearly with increase in moisture content of grain. Minimum radius and length of the mung bean kernel
did not show significant change (α = 0.05) with increase in moisture content from 9.9 to 18.3% w.b.

Key words: Physical dimensions, moisture content, mung bean

Pulses are the dry seeds of leguminous plants, distinguished
from leguminous oil seeds which have low fat content
(CODEX, 1995). Of these pulses, mung bean (Vigna
radiate (L.) R. Wilczek) is an important one. India is the
largest producer of mung bean and produced around 1.24
Mt (45% of total world production) during 2008-09 (DES,
2010). During the year 2002, India had experienced 7.5%
of storage losses due to improper and inefficient methods
of storage of mung bean (DMI, 2002). These post harvest
losses were due to improper design of process equipment
and storage facilities. Properties data play an important role
in the design of the post harvest handling equipment and
storage facilities. The conventional methods of physical
properties determination for pulses are tedious and time
consuming, nowadays machine vision systems (MVS) can
be used to determine these dimensions rapidly and more
accurately.
measured the effect of moisture content on 49 morphological
features of wheat using digital image processing. All these
studies have proven that MVS is an efficient method to
determine the effect of moisture content on the physical
dimensions of grains.
Although a lot of physical properties data are available for
various grains, little data are available about the dimensions
of mung bean. So, the present study was conducted with the
objective to quantify the changes in physical dimensions of
mung bean at different nominal moisture contents. As the
safe storage moisture for pulses is 14% w.b.; so including
this safe moisture content and two moisture levels above
and two moisture levels below this (10, 12, 14, 16, 18%
w.b.) were chosen for conducting the study.
MATERIALS AND METHODS

Physical dimensions are affected by grain moisture content.
Majumdar and Jayas (2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2000d)
developed an algorithm that can extract morphological,
colour and textural features for classification of CWRS
wheat, CWAD wheat, barley, oats and rye kernels. These
algorithms were further developed by Visen (2002) and
Paliwal (2002). Tahir et al. (2007) studied the effect of
moisture content on the classification accuracy of bulk
and individual wheat kernels. Ramalingam et al. (2009)
Twenty five kg of clean mixed cultivars of mung bean,
cultivated in India, was procured from local market in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and used in the study. Initial
moisture content of the sample was 9.9% (w.b.). The entire
seed bulk was divided into five lots; each lot conditioned to
desired moisture content by adding a predetermined amount
of distilled water and mixing in a rotary blender rotating at
26 rpm for 30 min. Samples were then allowed to equilibrate
in a plastic bag at 7°C for about 72 h. Moisture content of the

M. Tech Student, IICPT, Thanjavur, TN, India; 2Vice-President (Research and International) and Distinguished Professor, University of
1

Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, e-mail: digvir.jayas@ad.umanitoba.ca; 3Director, IICPT, Thanjavur, TN, India; 4Research Engineer,
Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

59
January - March, 2013 Measurement of Physical Dimensions of Mung Bean

five conditioned seed lots were 9.9±0.2, 12.2±0.3, 14.0±0.2,
16.3±0.3 and 18.3±0.4% (w.b.), respectively.
MVS for Determining Physical Dimensions
The setup, for measurement of physical dimensions,
essentially consisted of a machine vision system, image
acquisition and image processing. The machine vision
system which was used to acquire images consisted of a
3-chip Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) colour camera (HV-F
31 CL- S4, Hitachi, Japan) provided with a zoom lens of 12
mm focal length. The illumination for a sample was provided
using a 305 mm diameter circular fluorescent lamp (FC
12T9/CWP, 32W, Philips, Bangkok, Thailand), which was
placed around the sample and integrated with a photodiode
light sensor to control light intensity at a constant level. A
semicircular dome shaped stainless steel light diffuser of
390 mm diameter, its internal surface painted white with
smoked magnesium oxide, was used to provide uniform
and sufficient light. Measurement and Automation Explore
(Version: 4.6.0.49152, National Instruments, Austin, TX,
USA) software was used for image acquisition.
Image Acquisition and Feature Extraction
The image acquisition system was switched on 30 min
before start of the image acquisition session in order to get
stable illumination. For each moisture content (9.9, 12.2,
14.0, 16.3 and 18.3%), 450 individual mung bean kernels
were randomly selected and for each image nine kernels
were arranged in 3 x 3 matrix for image acquisition. A
total of 250 images were taken for all the five moisture
contents. All the images were saved as ‘tiff’ files without
any compression. For feature extraction, a feature extraction
program developed by researchers at the Canadian Wheat
Board Centre for Grain Storage Research (Mujumdar &
Jayas, 2000a; 2000b; 2000c; 2000d; Paliwal, 2002; Visen,
2002) was used. The feature extraction program reads
and processes the images to extract 230 features from
individual kernel images. Out of these 230 features, 51 are
morphological, 123 colour, and 56 textural features. From
these 230 features extracted, seven basic morphological
features (area, perimeter, major axis length, minor axis
length, maximum radius, minimum radius and mean radius)
were analyzed.
Data Analysis
Influence of moisture content on the physical dimensions
of mung bean was analyzed using Proc GLM of Statistical
Analysis Software (SAS, Version 9.1.3, SAS Institute Inc.
Cary, NC, USA). Least Significant Difference (LSD) test
was chosen to compare the effect of moisture content on the
seven basic morphological features of mung bean.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The values of seven basic morphological features: area,
perimeter, maximum radius, minimum radius, mean
radius, major axis length and minor axis length at five
moisture levels (9.9, 12.2, 14.0, 16.3 and 18.3% w.b.)
and the results of statistical grouping using LSD test are
shown in Table 1.
Mean area of mung bean at different moisture contents

Table 1. Mean morphological features based on 450 mung bean kernels at five different moisture contents

Moisture Area* Perimeter** Max. radius Min. radius Mean radius Major axis Minor axis
Content (mm2) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) length (mm) length (mm)
17.28a 15.73a 2.65a 1.93a 2.32a 5.21a 4.12a
9.9
±3.08 ±1.53 ±0.29 ±0.17 ±0.22 ±0.57 ±0.36
18.06b 16.16b 2.72b 1.96b 2.38b 5.35b 4.17b
12.2
±2.67 ±1.30 ±0.25 ±0.14 ±0.18 ±0.49 ±0.32
18.50c 16.37c 2.75c 2.00c 2.40c 5.41b 4.26c
14.0
±2.83 ±1.38 ±0.26 ±0.16 ±0.19 ±0.59 ±0.36
19.12d 16.63d 2.81d 2.02d 2.45d 5.52c 4.26c
16.3
±2.71 ±1.25 ±0.23 ±0.15 ±0.18 ±0.46 ±0.34
19.69e 16.87e 2.86e 2.03d 2.48e 5.62d 4.28c
18.3
±2.93 ±1.36 ±0.26 ±0.15 ±0.19 ±0.50 ±0.33
LSD 0.36 0.17 0.03 0.02 0.03 0.07 0.04
*Area is measured in pixels and converted into mm2.
**All dimensions except area are measured in pixels and converted into mm.
LSD (Least Significant Difference) values were calculated using error mean square and critical value of t.
Values with same letters within each physical property indicate that they were not significantly different at α=0.05

60
L. Ravikanth, D. S. Jayas, K. Alagusundaram, V. Chelladurai JAE : 50 (1)

increased significantly (α=0.05) as the moisture content Minor axis length of mung bean also increased with increase
increased from 9.9 to 18.3% (w.b), Table 1. Similar linear in moisture content. Initially, there was significant increase
trend of increase in area with moisture content was reported in minor axis length from 9.9 to 14% moisture content,
in green wheat in the moisture range of 9.3 to 41.5% by followed by a statistically constant value for 14.0, 16.3 and
Al-Mahasneh and Rababah (2007) and in three classes of 18.3% moisture contents. Morphological features (area,
Canadian wheat in the moisture range of 12.5 to 19.7% perimeter, length and radius) of various samples determined
(w.b.) by Ramalingam et al. (2009). mechanically also showed similar increasing trends with
increase in moisture content. Similar increase in physical
Similar to area, perimeter of mung bean also increased dimensions of wheat kernels were reported with increase
significantly (α=0.05) as the moisture content increased in moisture content (Ramalingam et al., 2009).
from 9.9 to 18.3% (w.b.), Table 1. This was expected as the
area and perimeter are interrelated terms. Similar increase
in perimeter of three Canadian wheat classes with moisture Table 2. Regression models of physical dimensions of
content using a machine vision system was observed by mung bean
Ramalingam et al. (2009).
Regression Co-efficient of
Feature
Maximum radius, minimum radius and mean radius are equation determination (R2)
the three radial dimensions. All the three radial dimensions
Area (mm2) 0.281 M + 14.54 0.997
of mung bean increased with increase in moisture content
(Table 1). Statistical grouping results showed that maximum Perimeter
0.131 M + 14.48 0.986
radius and mean radius increased significantly (α=0.05) (mm)
with increase in moisture content from 9.9 to 18.3%, but Maximum
0.024 M + 2.412 0.995
minimum radius initially increased significantly with radius (mm)
increase in moisture content from 9.9 to 16.3%, and later Minimum
0.012 M + 1.812 0.950
remained statistically constant with further increase in radius (mm)
moisture content. Mean radius
0.018 M + 2.141 0.987
(mm)
Major axis length increased significantly with increase Major axis
0.047 M + 4.750 0.994
of moisture content from 9.9 to 12.2%, followed by a length (mm)
statistically constant value at 12.2 and 14.0% moisture Minor axis
0.029 M + 3.819 0.920
contents, and finally significantly increased with further length (mm)
increase in moisture content from 14.0 to 18.3% (w.b.). (M is moisture content, % w.b.)

Table 3. Validation of regression models for physical dimensions of mung bean

Moisture content (% w.b.)

Feature
10 12 14 16 18
Measured 17.28 18.06 18.50 19.12 19.69
Area (mm2)
Predicted 17.35 17.91 18.47 19.04 19.60
Measured 15.73 16.16 16.37 16.63 16.87
Perimeter (mm)
Predicted 15.79 16.05 16.31 16.58 16.84
Measured 2.65 2.72 2.75 2.81 2.86
Maximum radius (mm)
Predicted 2.65 2.70 2.75 2.80 2.84
Measured 1.93 1.96 2.00 2.02 2.03
Minimum radius (mm)
Predicted 1.93 1.96 1.98 2.00 2.03
Measured 2.32 2.38 2.40 2.45 2.48
Mean radius (mm)
Predicted 2.32 2.36 2.39 2.43 2.47
Measured 5.21 5.35 5.41 5.52 5.62
Major axis length (mm)
Predicted 5.22 5.31 5.41 5.50 5.60
Measured 4.12 4.17 4.26 4.26 4.28
Minor axis length (mm)
Predicted 4.11 4.17 4.23 4.28 4.34

61
January - March, 2013 Measurement of Physical Dimensions of Mung Bean
Linear regression analysis was used to determine the
relationship between physical dimensions and moisture
content of mung bean kernel. Predicted linear regression
equations and their co-efficient of determination (R2) values
for measured data of area, perimeter, length and radii are
presented in Table 2. Independent samples were chosen at
different moisture contents (10, 12, 14, 16 and 18% w.b.)
in order to validate the regression models (Table 3).
CONCLUSIONS
Morphological features of mung bean increased linearly with
increase in moisture content from 9.9 to 18.3% (w.b.). Area,
perimeter and radii of mung bean increased significantly
(α=0.05), but its length did not increase significantly in a
consistent manner with increase in moisture content of the
kernel. Data obtained would be useful for the design of
processing equipment and storage facilities for post harvest
handling of mung bean.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge Manitoba Innovation, Energy and
Mines and Indian Ministry of Food processing Industries
for their financial support for this study.
REFERENCES
Al-Mahasneh M A; Rababah T A. 2007. Effect of moisture
content on some physical properties of green wheat. J. Food
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CODEX. 1995. Codex standard for certain pulses - CODEX
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DES. 2010. Area, Production and Average Yield of Pulses in
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DMI. 2002. Post harvest profile of green gram. Directorate
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Majumdar S; Jayas D S. 2000a. Classification of cereal
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Majumdar S; Jayas D S. 2000b. Classification of cereal
grains using machine vision: II. Colour models. Trans.
ASAE, 43(6), 1677-1680.
Majumdar S; Jayas D S. 2000c. Classification of cereal
grains using machine vision: III. Texture models. Trans.
ASAE, 43(6), 1681-1687.
Majumdar S; Jayas D S. 2000d. Classification of cereal
grains using machine vision: IV. Combined morphology,
colour, and texture models. Trans. ASAE, 43(6), 1689-
1694.
Paliwal J. 2002. Digital image analysis of grain samples for
potential use in grain cleaning. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis,
Winnipeg, MB, Department of Biosys. Engg., University
of Manitoba.
Ramalingam G; Neethirajan S; Jayas D S; White N D G.
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single wheat kernels using machine vision. CSBE Paper No.
09-708, Winnipeg, MB, CSBE.
Tahir A R; Neethirajan S; Jayas D S; Shahin M A; Symons
S J; White N D G. 2007. Evaluation of the effect of moisture
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Int., 40(9), 1140-1145.
Visen N S. 2002. Machine vision based grain handling system.
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Biosys. Engg., University of Manitoba.
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ISSN : 0256-6524 VOL. 50, No. 1 January-March 2013

Journal of Agricultural Engineering

Vol. 50 January-March 2013 No. 1

CONTENTS
Page No.

Effect of Spraying Pressure and Usage on Discharge Rate and Wear of Hollow Cone Nozzle having 01
different Nozzle Tip Material
Sanchu Sukumaran, G S Manes, S K Singh, Arshdeep Singh and Anoop Dixit

Design and Development of a Tractor Operated Garlic Harvester 09

Khambe Vishal Krishna, Dipankar De and P. K. Sahoo

Osmotic Dehydration of Pineapple with Sucrose: Mass Transfer Kinetics 14

Devinder Dhingra, Dattatreya M. Kadam, Jasjit Singh and R. T. Patil

Moisture Dependent Physical and Thermal Properties of Coleus Tubers 19

V.Chandrasekar, R.Kailappan, R.Kasthuri and K.Rajamani

Effect of Carrot Powder on Quality of Multipurpose Flour based Snack Food 27

Krishna Kumar Patel, S. A. Liaquati, M. A. Khan and P. S. Minz

A Comparative Study on Drying of Ber 34

Priyanka Das and Archana Singha Dutta

Drying Characteristics of Rose Flowers 39

Jaydipsinh B. Raol, Mahendrasinh T. Kumpavat and D.M.Vyas

Water Use Efficiency of Salt Tolerant and Non-Tolerant Wheat Varieties under Irrigated Saline Regimes 47
P. Kumar, A. Sarangi, D.K. Singh and S.S. Parihar

Research Note
Adequacy of Blanching on Quality Characteristics of Medicinal Indian Borage Leaves 54
Suchismita Dwivedy and Kalpana Rayaguru

Measurement of Physical Dimensions of Mung Bean 59

L. Ravikanth, D. S. Jayas, K. Alagusundaram and V. Chelladurai

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