little influence
Results and Discussion
The principle behind the microwave oven drying is liberating
moisture by agitating water molecules in the organic
substances with the help of electronically produced
microwaves. Drying is exceptionally fast and gets completed
within a few minutes and generates little heat
[6].The data pertaining to various parameters, viz., dry
weight, moisture loss, colour, appearance and texture of the
rose flowers dried in microwave oven as influenced by
different time levels and mode of desiccation are presented
in Table 1. Dry weight and moisture loss did not show
significant differences either due to different time levels or
due to embedding (mode of desiccation) and also due to
their interactions, which indicated uniform removal of
moisture from the flowers. Significant differences were
observed due to mode of desiccation for the colour,
appearance and texture of dried Dutch rose flowers. Among
the mode of desiccation, embedding method scored higher
points (2.92) for colour as compared to drying without
embedding which scored only 1.19 points. Embedded