Drying time Th e i nit i al mois ture co ntent of pumpkin fruit
ranged from 89 % for pumpkin accessio n 8007 to 94 %
for pumpkin fr uit accession 1307. Th e m oisture l oss was
fast er during oven drying than durin g uncontrolled sun
d r yi ng (Fig . 1 ). The o ven dried pumpki n f ruit slices
required about 20 h to r each 10 % mo istu re conten t whil e
sundryingtook28 htoattain the moisturecontentof
10 %. This re sult agrees wit h the finding of Ra hman and
Lamb ( 1991 ) w h o re po rt ed th at o ve n dr yin g en h an ce s
m o is tu r e l o s s f ro m t h e f r u it a n d v e g e t ab l e s w he n c o m-pared w it h uncontroll ed s un dryi ng. Su n drying r equires
longer drying time and depends on the e nvironmental
condit ions such as ambie nt air t em peratu re and r el ati ve
h u mi d it y ( Ra jk u m a r 20 0 7 ). On the other hand, pumpkin
fruit accessions had signific ant ( P ≤ 0.05) in fluence on t he
tim e of drying (Fi g. 1 ) . Th e t im e t a k e n f o r a ll p u m pk i n
fruit accessi on to reac h 10 % mois ture content ranged
from 20.3 t o 28.3 h. P um pkin fruit accession 8007 to ok
short drying ti m e of 20.3 h to attain 10 % of mo istu re
content which wa s f ollo wed by accessions 5207.