COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT METHODS FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE WATER-CONTENT AND THE DRY MASS CORRECTION FACTOR IN VARIOUS PLANT-SAMPLES

The water content was measured by microwave-, oven-, and freeze-drying in different vegetables like beans, corn, potato, alfalfa, garlic, an d onions. Apart from beans and bean shells, all procedures resulted in similar values, Oven-drying seemed to be less suitable for beans. In samples which were in equilibrium with the laboratory environment for a longer time, the correction factor to dry mass was determined using a freeze-drying device, infrared-, microwave-and oven-drying. All the procedures yielded similar values for this factor.