EFFECT OF DRYING ON THE QUALITY OF MANGO (MANGIFERA INDICA L.

) SLICES
C.W. Gathambiri, C.N. Karanja and S.N. Kiiru KARI Thika P.O. Box 220-01000,Thika, Kenya Abstract Postharvest losses occur due to glut market and hence there is a need to explore value addition and on-farm preservation of mango to reduce the wastage. Dehydration of fruits is one of the oldest techniques for food preservation. Its essential feature is that, the moisture content of the food is reduced to a level below which microorganism cannot grow. Therefore this project was aimed at adapting and improving the technology of drying mango. An improved solar drying method was evaluated using a solar drier and compared to the conventional method where the fruits are spread on the ground. Hours to drying, colour and texture, contamination by insects and dust are some of parameters that were considered. It was observed that the samples dried using the improved solar drying method dried after 18 hrs and had more appealing colour while conventional dried products dried after 21hrs and had poor colour development. The products dried in a solar drier were free from contaminations either by dust or insects. Therefore, the solar drier improved the quality of the finished product. Introduction In Kenya the mango fruit is consumed locally and exported, thus earning the country foreign exchange and is a source of household income for the resource poor farmer. Mango fruit are relished for their succulence, exotic flavour and delicious taste. They are also an excellent source of dietary fibre, provitamin A and vitamin C. Poor postharvest handling of the mango fruit causes losses of 40-45 percent (KARI, 1994). During peak harvesting periods, postharvest losses occur due to excess of fruits in the market and hence the need to explore on-farm preservation of mango to reduce the wastage. Currently mango production is intended for fresh consumption however, the fruit can be processed into a number of products such as dried mangoes, chutney and mango leathers. Dehydration of fruits is one of the oldest techniques for fruit preservation. Its essential feature is that, the moisture content of the food is reduced to a level below which microorganism cannot grow. The removal of the moisture brings about substantial reduction in weight and volume, minimising packaging, storage and transportation costs and enables storability of the product under ambient temperatures and for a long time. Fruits that are properly dried particularly to a low moisture level (<5%) hardly affect the main calorie-providing constituents of fruits. It leaves the mineral contents unchanged thus preserving the nutritive content of the final product. Sun drying of fruits as a method for food preservation is still practised but it is limited to climates with hot and dry atmosphere. The conventional method of spreading of the fruits on the ground leads to contamination by dust, dirt and insect infestation of the finished product. Therefore this study was aimed at adapting and improving the technologies of drying the mango and to evaluate the effects on quality of solar dried fruits. Materials and Methods The mango fruits used in this study were harvested in February 2005 from KARI Thika orchard at commercial maturity stage. The maturity indices that were considered during harvesting were high shoulders and the peel colour change. The fruits were transported to post harvest laboratory-KARI-Thika the same day. They were cleaned and ripened at room temperature (25C) until they were soft to eat. The fruits were peeled and sliced to round thin slices of about 8 mm. The slices were arranged singly in trays of a solar drier (Figure 2) and other fruit slices were spread on a polythene sack and placed on the ground. The ambient conditions during drying were: Temperature 23C to 25C, Relative Humidity 60-70% and wind speed of 5.0 km/hr to 5.8 km/hr.

Fig. 2: Solar Drier Trays and the Round Shaped Slices of Mango

Fig. 1: Side Ventilated, Transparent Top and bottom black polythene sheet Solar Drier

The following procedure was used to prepare the mango slices for drying. Raw mango Sorting Washing Peeling

Slicing

Drying

Solar Drying Fig. 3: Mango drying process

Drying on the ground

The solar drier was made of a transparent top and the bottom covered with a black polythene sheet raised from the ground as in Figures 1 and 2). Ventilation holes were made on the sidewalls to maintain natural air circulation as shown in Figure 1. Physical quality of the product was determined visually (Somogyi and Luh, 1975) where scoring was carried out and total maximum score was to add up to 100. The parameters that were determined included colour, dust/insect infestations, texture and uniformity of size. Ten persons did the scoring and means for each parameter was calculated. Hours to drying were also recorded. Results The samples that were dried through the conventional method took 21 hrs to dry while those in the solar drier took 18 hrs. The colour of the samples dried under improved method had higher scoring (18/20) than those dried under convectional method (9/20). Contamination by insect/dust for the improved drying method scored 40/40 while for the convectional method the samples scored 10/40 as shown in Table 1. The total maximum score was higher in samples dried under a solar drier (91/100) than those that were spread on the ground (44).

Table 1Physical characteristic of the dried mango products through a solar drier and conventional method Physical characteristics Improved method Conventional method Color 18 9 Texture 16 10 Dust/insect contaminations 40 10 Uniformity of size 17 15 Total maximum score 91 44 Figure presented in the table are mean scores of ten persons

Discussion The fruit slices dried in an improved solar drier took a shorter time since the black polythene sheet at the bottom of the drier as indicated in Figure 1 absorbs the heat from the atmosphere thus increasing the temperature around the product therefore reducing the hours to drying. The colour of the finished product dried using the solar drier had higher score than those dried on the ground as indicated in Table1 since the top is covered reducing the amount of light to the product, which affects the colour. Insects were observed crawling on the product dried the conventional way, the samples had the highest score on contamination. Those dried in the solar drier were protected from any insects and dust contamination as the drier was covered using a clear polythene sheet and raised from the ground which reduced contaminants interferences as also reported by WoodRoof and Luh, 1975. Conclusion and Recommendation The solar drier is more appropriate in drying mangoes than the conventional method of spreading on the ground since it improves the quality of the finished product by reducing contamination by dust, insect infestation and human or animal interferences. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the Director KARI for funding this research and the Centre Director Thika, Dr. C.N. Waturu, for providing the needed facilitation while carrying out the study. References Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (1994). Annual Report. Somogyi L.P. and Luh B.S. (1975). Dehydration of Fruits in Commercial Fruit Processing WestPort, Connecticut, The AVI Publishing Company, INC. pg. 413. WoodRoof J.G. and Luh B.S. (1975). Dehydration of fruits in Commercial Fruit Processing WestPort, Connecticut, The AVI Publishing Company, INC. pg. 387.