Standardization of postharvest processing of ginger (zingiber officinale roscoe)

Abstract

Investigation on standardization of post-harvest processing of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) was carried out at the Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Vellayani during 1988 -90. Ginger rhizomes were processed to study the effect of various methods like scraping, slicing, blanching, boiling, coating and their combinations on the yield and quality of dry ginger, storage life and also on storage pests and diseases adopting CRD. In this study among the various treatments low recovery (31.6 per cent) of dry ginger was obtained for scraped ginger. The sliced rhizomes took only four days for drying. The essential oil content decreased with an increase in time. The treatments slicing and drying (T4), blanching and drying (T5), unpealed and drying (T1) scraping and drying (T3) and spliting and drying (T2) were found to be the best for longer storage. The oleoresin content also decreased with an increase in time and the treatment combinations which include boiling resulted in the maximum reduction in oleoresin content followed in the maximum reduction in oleoresin content followed by combinations of scraping and spliting. The study revealed that compared to single treatment a combination of treatments especially when boiling as a component reduced the crude fibre content. The ginger rhizomes when sliced and dried took the minimum period for drying and it resulted in the production of normal coloured product and also comparable in quality aspects. Hence slicing and drying of ginger rhizomes is an alternate method for processing of ginger.