2008 A P P L I E D A N D N AT U R A L S C I E N C E F O U N D A T I O N   Journal of Applied and Natural Science 8 (2): 1049 - 1052 (2016) INTRODUCTION Pea (Pisum sativum L.) is one of the most commonly grown food legumes in the world and it has been widely used in the human diet. Pea seeds consist of 23- 25% of protein, 50% starch 5% soluble sugars includ- ing fibre, minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals in minor quantities. It originated in the Middle East and was later widely grown in temperate regions of the world, among them China, India, United States, France and Egypt are its major producers (Kumar et. al., 2015). In India pea is grown over an area of 433.6 thousand hectare with a production of 3868.6 thousand tonnes and in Himachal Pradesh it is grown on 23.9 thousand hectare area with 271.1 thousand tonnes pro- duction (Anonymous, 2014). Peas are prone to perish fast and they must be pre- served well for later consumption and usage. Taking into consideration the seasonal availability and re- gional abundances along with perishability of green peas, drying of peas is becoming a preferred method to extend its shelf life and consumability. Generally, dry- ing of most of the mature legume seeds is done by sun drying or mechanical drying but higher temperature and prolonged drying leads to adverse changes in col- our, texture and flavour, thereby rendering the product with poor consumer acceptability and shelf-stability ISSN : 0974-9411 (Print), 2231-5209 (Online) All Rights Reserved © Applied and Natural Science Foundation www.ansfoundation.org (Sharma et al., 1987). Chemical changes mainly affect sensory properties such as colour, taste and aroma, whereas physical changes mainly influence the han- dling properties such as swelling capacity and cooking time (Pieternel et al., 1995; Bhattacharya and Malleshi, 2012). In addition, predrying treatments can reduce some of the undesirable changes such as color and textural changes by inactivating enzymes and also re- duce the drying time by relaxing tissue structure and can yield a good quality dried peas (Doymaz and Ko- cayigita, 2011). Purkayastha (2011) reported that blanching prior to drying or dehydration is required to inactivate peroxidase activity, protect colour, texture and nutrients. It also improved the rate of drying and produced product with lower acidity (Sharma et al., 2015). Peas can be best dried without much quality deteriora- tion by using predrying treatments followed by me- chanical dehydration and hence find great scope in incorporating the dried peas in various food products such as muffins and cakes, soup mixes, breakfast cere- als, bakery, confectionery and dairy products, soups, purees, etc. to ensure round the year availability. In addition to preservation, drying lowers the cost of packaging, storage and transportation by reducing both of the weight and volume of the final product nutri- tional value and taste (Chauhan and Srivastava, 2009). Effect of predrying treatments on the retention of quality characteristics of green peas (Pisum sativum L.) cv. Lincoln during mechanical drying 1 Surekha Attri, 1 Anju K Dhiman, 2* Rakesh Kumar and 1 Rakesh Sharma 1 Department of Food Science and Technology,Dr Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan-173230 (HP), INDIA 2 Department of Vegetable Science, Dr Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan-173230 (HP), INDIA * Corresponding author. E-mail: rakeshuhfsolan@gmail.com Received: October 30, 2015; Revised received: February 27, 2016; Accepted: June 7, 2016 Abstracts: An experiment was conducted to standardize the predrying treatments with minimum loss to physico- chemical characteristics of green peas (Pisum sativum L.) cv. Lincoln during drying process. In this study, moisture content (73%), TSS (15 o B), chlorophyll content (28mg/100g) and ascorbic acid (54mg/100g) were recorded in green peas. Different predrying treatments used in this study for quality preservation of peas were T 0 , T 1 and T 2 . From this study, it was concluded that Na 2 CO 3 , NaCl and sugars were responsible for the preservation of green color/ chlorophyll in peas during drying. On the basis of sensory evaluation T 2 was found best among all because maxi- mum green color was retained in this treatment. Therefore, it was further selected for physico-chemical analysis. After drying there was decrease in moisture content (4%), chlorophyll content (17mg/100g) and ascorbic acid con- tent (37.6mg /100g) while increase in TSS (22 0 B), reducing sugars (8.3%) and total sugars (20%) of peas. A rehy- dration ratio of 3:1 was observed for this treatment. This is a low cost technology for preservation of quality of peas. Dried peas can further be utilized for the preparation of various value added instant products round the year. Keywords: Drying, Green peas, Predrying treatments, Quality