Harvesting

• Depending upon the variety, the crop becomes ready for

harvest in 7-9 months after planting.
• Usually harvesting extends from January to March-April.
Early varieties mature in 7-8 months and medium varieties in
8-9 months.
• The crop is ready for harvesting when the leaves turn yellow
and start drying up.
• At the time of maturity, leaves are cut close to the ground, the
land is ploughed and rhizomes are gathered by hand-picking or
the clumps are carefully lifted with a spade.
• The picked rhizomes are collected and cleaned. The mother
and finger rhizomes are separated before curing.
• The yield per hectare comes to 20,000 to 22,000 kilograms of
green turmeric. Some of the high-yielding selections
developed have recorded a yield of 35,000 of green turmeric
per hectare.

Quality of cured turmeric is assessed on

• The pigment (curcumin) content

• The organoleptic character
• The general appearance
• Size and physical form of rhizome

• Hence proper care is exercised while taking up processing the

material.
Processing

It involves three-steps

• Curing
• Polishing
• Colouring.

Curing

• Fingers are separated from mother rhizomes and are usually

kept as seed material.
• The fresh turmeric is cured for obtaining dry turmeric before
marketing.
• Curing involves boiling of fresh rhizomes in water and drying in
the sun.
• The objective of boiling is to destroy the viability of the fresh
rhizomes and to obviate the raw odour, to reduce the drying
time, to gelatinize the starch for hardening the rhizomes and
give a more uniform coloured product and an even distribution
of colour in the rhizome.
• In the traditional methods, the cleaned rhizomes are boiled in
copper or galvanized iron or earthen vessels, with water just
enough to soak them.
• In regions of sugarcane where turmeric is cultivated the
shallow pans used for gur boiling can be used for turmeric
boiling also. If water is acidic, sodium bicarbonate is added to
make it slightly alkaline.
• In certain places, cowdung slurry is used as boiling medium.
From hygienic point of view, such rhizomes fetch poor market
value.
• Boiling process should be done over a slow fire until they
softened.
• Boiling is stopped when froth comes out and white fumes
appear giving out a typical odour when properly cooked, the
rhizomes would be soft and yield when pressed between
fingers.
• The boiling lasts for 45 to 60 minutes when the rhizomes are
soft. Over cooking spoils the colour of final product while under
cooking renders the dried product brittle.
 • In the improved scientific methods of
curing the cleaned fingers
(approximately 50 kg) are taken in a
perforated trough of size
0.9x0.55x0.4m, made of GI or MS
sheet with extended parallel handle.

• The perforated trough containing the

fingers are then immersed in the
pan. The alkaline solution (0.1%
sodium carbonate or sodium
bicarbonate) is poured into the
trough so as to immerse the turmeric
fingers.
• The whole mass is boiled till the finger become soft. The
cooked fingers are taken out of the pan by lifting the trough
and draining the solution into the pan.
• Alkalinity of the boiling water helps in imparting orange yellow
tinge to the core of turmeric.
• The drained solution in the pan can also be used for boiling
another lot of turmeric along with the fresh solution prepared
for the purpose.
• The cooking of turmeric is to be done within two or three days
after harvesting. The mother rhizomes and the fingers are
generally cured separately.
• The cooked fingers are dried in the sun by spreading 5 to 7 cm
thick layers on bamboo mat or drying floor. A thinner layer is
not desirable, as the colour of the dried product may be
adversely affected.
• During night time, the materials should be heaped or covered.
It may take 10 to 15 days for the rhizomes to become
completely dry.
• The yield of the dry product varies from 20 to 30 percent
depending upon the variety and the location where the crop is
grown.

Polishing

• Dried turmeric has poor

appearance and a rough dull
outer surface with scales and
root lets. The appearance is
improved by smoothening and
polishing outer surface by
manual or mechanical rubbing.
Manual polishing

• Consists of rubbing the dried turmeric fingers on a hard

surface or trampling them under feet, wrapped in gunny bags.

Mechanical rubbing

• The improved method is by using hand operated barrel or

drum mounted on a central axis, the sides of which are made
of expanded metal mesh.
• When the drum filled with turmeric is rotated at 30 rpm,
polishing is effected by abrasion of the surface against the
mesh as well as by mutual rubbing against each other as they
roll inside the drum.
• The turmeric is also polished in power-operated drums. The
yield of polished turmeric from the raw materials varies from
15 to 25 percent.

Colouring

• It is done to give a good appearance and better finish to the

product.
• This is done to half polished rhizomes in two ways, known as
dry and wet colouring. Turmeric powder is added to the
polishing drum in the last 10 minutes in dry process.
• In wet process, Turmeric powder is suspends in water and
mixed by sprinkling inside the polishing basket.
• For giving a brighter colour, the boiled, dried and half-polished
fingers are taken in baskets which are shaken continuously
when an emulsion is poured in.
• When the fingers are uniformly coated with the emulsion they
may be dried in the sun.
• The composition of the emulsion required for coating 100 kg of
half boiled turmeric is
• Alum 0.04 kg,
• Turmeric powder 2 kg
• Castor seed oil 0.14 kg
• Sodium bisulfate 30 g
• Concentrated hydrochloric acid 30ml.

Improved Methods of Curing

• The Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore,

has developed a simpler, hygienic and efficient technique of
curing and colouring turmeric.

• In this rhizomes are boiled in lime-water or sodium carbonate.

A water solution containing 20 g sodium bisulphite and 20 g of
 hydrochloric acid per 45.3 kg of tubers is recommended to
given them the desired yellow tint.

Packaging

Whole Turmeric

• Well-cured and dried turmeric is generally packed in double

burlap new gunny bags which are properly fumigated prior to
packaging.

Turmeric Powder

• Humidity moisture relationship studies on ground turmeric

have revealed that a moisture level of above 12.1% (dry-
weight basis, DWB) is critical with respect to free-flow
characteristics of the product.
• Detail packaging studies have revealed that aluminium-foil
laminate offers maximum protection against loss of volatile oil
and ingress of moisture.
• Double pouch of 300 MSAT cellophane glassine inside and 250
gauge low-density polyethylene outside offers adequate
protection to the product over 135 days in different conditions
of storage when initial moisture content of the product is
about 9% (DWB).
• Polyethylene pouches alone are inadequate to give desired
protection against loss of volatile oil as nearly 60% of it is lost
within 135 days.

• Printing on the polyethylene pouches gets disfigured and

smudged and pouches become sticky in bulk, turmeric powder
is packed in fibre-board drums, multiwall bags and tin
containers.

Storage

Storage at Producers Level

 • Farmers can store cured turmeric for long if Turmeric bags are
stored in a pit. For this purpose, pits of 450cm deep with
300cm and 200cm sides should be dug on raised ground.
• The pits should be allowed to dry for a couple of days and
sides and bottom should be padded with a thick layer of paddy
straw or any such material.
• Over the layer a date-mat is spread. After bags of turmeric
are kept in the pit, they should be covered with a layer of
straw or grass. It is then covered with soil.

Warehousing

• Better and scientific storage in Central and State warehouses

is recommended where prophylactic treatment and fumigation
facilities too do exist for hygienic storage in a modern store at
a nominal cost.

Control of Insect Infestation

• Disinfestation of spices and spice powders may be achieved by

heat, as insects in all stages succumb to exposure at 60° C for
5 to 10 min.
• However, due to insulating effect of solid spice and also of
powder, the exposure time and temperature required for
effective killing of embedded insects leads to loss of quality.
• Steam at 50 to 75 psi may be used to use temperature of
vaults quickly to 85 to 95° C, and these treatments disinfect
45.3 kg bags of powdered spice in 24 hr.
• Cost of treatment and loss of quality limit use of this method.
Infrared treatment of spice passing through a rotating inclined
metal tube has been suggested, but specific studies on the
feasibility of the treatment for turmeric are not available.
• Fumigation with suitable chemicals has been developed into
quick, effective and economic disinfestation procedure.
• Sulphurdioxide from burning sulphur in sealed warehouses has
traditionally been used in developing countries, but has been
almost given up in favour of other gaseous fumigants which
are easier to use, are more effective and have minimum effect
on the quality of spices.
• The lethal doses of a number of fumigants for adult insects
have been determined, and allowing for sorption of gases by
commodities and loss by leakage, a working dosage of 4 to 5
times the lethal dosage is recommended.
• For achieving 100% Disinfestation, the maintenance of an
effective concentration and exposure period is necessary.
• Vital considerations other than achieving sterility are
permissible levels of fumigant residues, interaction products,
and their effect on flavour quality of spice.
• Phosphine and hydrogen cyanide are highly effective at low
doses of a few milligrams per line, but handling problems and
residue tolerance levels limit their use in spice-growing
developing countries.
• Normal airing at the end of fumigation, processing and
cooking releases unreacted fumigant to, less than a few ppm
at this concentration, the risk is insignificant.
• Recommended maximum levels of methyl bromide vary from
20 to 100ppm for different foods at the point of retail
distribution.
• With these organic bromide fumigants, water soluble inorganic
bromides are formed as residues in the treated food. Their
level is indicative of the level of bromine-containing fumigants
originally used.
• To prevent excessive use of brominated hydrocarbon
fumigants, a tolerance of 50 ppm of bromide ion has been
recommended for cereals and flours.
• Regarding spices whose daily intake is small, a level of 400
ppm is recommended by the FDA in the USA while a tolerance
level of 100 ppm is specified by the PFA in India.

• Residues of inorganic bromide from fumigation of turmeric,

using 64 mg of ethylene dibromide for 96 hr or methyl
bromide for 48 hr, were of the order of only 26 ppm, well
within the conservative limits fixed even for cereals.