The Effect of Air-Drying on Yield of Essential Oil from Sereh Wangi Plants Cultivated on Degraded Land

Abstract

Citronella (Cymbopogon nardus L) is a kind of plant producing essential oil. The cultivation does not require special requirements, can be grown on less fertile soil, and able to rehabilitate degraded and critical lands. In this study, 5 levels of drying duration (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 days) were observed for their effect on the yield of citronella oil grown at 3 critical levels of land (quite critical, critical, and very critical). The experiment was designed in a completely randomized block design with 3 replications. The distillation of whole citronella leaves was carried out for 4 hours using steam distillation method. The result showed that the air drying significantly affected the yield of citronella oil. An increase in drying duration decreased the yield of oil in a linear trend. The highest yield of oil was produced from fresh raw material (0 days drying duration). The decrease of the oil yield due to the increase of drying duration at three levels of critical land (quite critical, critical, and very critical) followed the equation Y1 =-0.024x + 0.711; Y2 =-0.017x + 0.704; and Y3 =-0.012x + 0.704 (for y = yield [%] and x = drying duration [day]).