The influence of pre-treatment methods like physical, chemical, combined
physical, and hybrid treatments on the Turkey berry fruits to enhance the
water diffusion during drying was assessed due to the removal of a waxy
layer on the peel. Pre-treated and untreated samples were dried at 70?C and
4 m/s of air flow in a fluidized bed dryer. Fruits pre-treated with combined
abrasion and blanching have the lowest drying time, and favorable Vitamin-C
content retention of 36%. The highest drying rate of 0.396 kg water/kg db
min?1, maximum effective moisture diffusivity of 6.002 x 10-10 m2/s, and
volumetric shrinkage ratio of 0.68 were obtained for fruits which undergone
combined physical pre-treatment along with drying. The maximum change in
color ?E = 14.75 and Chroma ?C = - 10.53 were obtained for the un-treated
samples.