Drying time The initial moisture content of pumpkin fruit
ranged from 89 % for pumpkin accession 8007 to 94 %
for pumpkin fruit accession 1307. The moisture loss was
faster during oven drying than during uncontrolled sun
drying (Fig . 1 ). The oven dried pumpkin fruit slices
required about 20 h to r each 10 % moisture content while
sun drying took 28 h to attain the moisture content of
10 %. This result agrees with the finding of Rahman and
Lamb ( 1991 ) who reported that oven drying enhances
moisture loss from the fruit and vegetables when compared with uncontrolled sun drying. Sun drying requires
longer drying time and depends on the environmental
conditions such as ambient air temperature and relative
humidity ( Rajkumar 2007). On the other hand, pumpkin
fruit accessions had significant ( P ≤ 0.05) influence on the
time of drying (Fig. 1 ) . The time taken for all pumpkin
fruit accession to reach 10 % moisture content ranged
from 20.3 t o 28.3 h. Pumpkin fruit accession 8007 took
short drying time of 20.3 h to attain 10 % of moisture
content which was followed by accessions 5207.