*Corresponding author: Reema Raval Department of Botany, Bioinformatics and Climate Change Impacts Management University School of Sciences, Gujarat University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-9 ISSN: 0976-3031 Research Article DRYING TECHNIQUES OF SELECTED FLOWERS: Rosa indica L. AND Gerbera Jamesonii L. *Reema Raval, Swati Jayswal and Bharat Maitreya Department of Botany, Bioinformatics and Climate Change Impacts Management University School of Sciences, Gujarat University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-9 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijrsr.2020.1106.5410 ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Drying means mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid or liquid. Since flowers and foliage consists of more water, dehydration is necessary for getting dry flowers. There different types of method for drying like Air drying, Sun drying, Press drying, Oven drying, Microwave drying, Embedded drying, Glycerine drying, Freeze drying. Air drying is a cheapest method of drying in which flowers are hanged for the drying. The flower of rosa has 5 petals. Flowers are usually white or pink but in a few species are yellow or red. Gerbera flower possesses three different types of flowers, an outer ring of ray florets, a middle ring of trans florets, an inner ring of disk florets. The both ray and disc flowers are packed tightly into a flower head is called as capitulum From the dried flowers different products are made like floral jewellery, pot pourri, candle making, press dried flower products, petal embedded handmade paper, etc. This dried flowers are also used in industry. For rose embedded drying technique is best in which flower shape, colour, size are maintained and for gerbera press drying and microwave drying techniques are best in which shape, size, colour are maintained. INTRODUCTION Drying means mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi- solid or liquid. Since flowers and foliage consists of more water, dehydration is necessary for getting dry flowers. Methods used for removing water from plants are air drying, oven drying, embedded (sand, borax, silica gel and combination of these materials), glycerining (glycerinating), microwave oven drying, freeze drying, press drying. Drying Methods 1. Air drying 2. Sun drying 3. Press drying 4. Hot air drying 5. Microwave drying 6. Embedding (silica gel) Air drying Air drying is a cheapest method of drying in which flowers are hanged for the drying. Healthy and a bit immature stage are selected for drying. Flowers are tied in bunches, ventilated at warm air in the dark area. Flowers take upto 1-2 weeks for drying and it depends upon the surrounding moisture content, humidity and temperature (Shailza Rana, 2018). Sun drying In this method the plant material is embedded in the sand for drying. This medium is filled into a container and expose daily to the sun for the fast dehydration. Sun drying methods is followed by India for drying many flowers. In the sand the flowers are embedded in upside down form and put in the sun for drying for day or two (P. Arul Murugan et al., 2007). Press drying Press drying is very simple and cheap method among all the methods. In this method a flower are put in folds of blotting paper, newspaper, old notebook paper etc. and at the top heavy object is being put. For drying it takes upto 3-4 weeks because it depends upon the water content of tissue in flowers. Time should be reduced if flower folded sheets is put in oven at appropriate temperature. Available Online at http://www.recentscientific.com International Journal of Recent Scientific Research International Journal of Recent Scientific Research Vol. 11, Issue, 06 (C), pp. 38946-38952, June, 2020 Copyright © Reema Raval, Swati Jayswal and Bharat Maitreya, 2020, this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: 10.24327/IJRSR CODEN: IJRSFP (USA) Article History: Received 10 th March, 2020 Received in revised form 2 nd April, 2020 Accepted 26 th May, 2020 Published online 28 th June, 2020 Key Words: Drying Techniques, Rose, Gerebera, Air drying, Embedded drying.